What was the first sale arranged on The Internet?

The story begins on the ARPANET, with a 1971-2 deal between computer science students at Stanford and MIT to buy some pot. Students from Stanford University’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory arranged drug deals with students from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They used their Arpanet accounts, which was the worlds first network to implement TCP/IP, and would later go onto become the internet, to arrange the deals.

Next, the story leads to 1984, when Grandmother Jane Snowball, 72, sat down in an armchair in her Gateshead home in May 1984, picked up a television remote control and used it to order the groceries from her local supermarket. With her remote control she used a piece of computer technology called Videotex.

The first true e-commerce transaction didn’t happen until 1994 with the beginning of the Internet as we more or less know it today. On August 11, 1994, Kohn sold a CD of Sting’s Ten Summoner’s Tales album to a friend in Philadelphia, who used his credit card to spend $12.48, plus shipping costs, in a transaction that, for the first time ever, was protected by encryption technology.

Pizza Hut often gets credit for the first e-commerce transaction (they started selling pizzas online in late August 1994). It was a large pepperoni, mushroom and extra cheese pizza.