This study investigated Egyptian consumers' attitudes to and perceptions of Internet held by a sample of 208 participants. The subjects completed a recently developed survey designed to measure usage patterns and perceptions of Internet. The study validated scale in an Arab non-Western context. As predicted, results reveal that females used e-mail more than did males, and males used Web more than did females. Age was found to be inversely related to Internet usage, while educational level was found to be positively related to Internet use. Introduction Over last few decades, information and communication technology have become vital as a platform for business and socio-economic development. Moreover, Internet became an important medium for information acquisition and knowledge dissemination across globe, which led to formulation of global information society and creation of digital economy with its growing trends such as competing in time, customer relationship management and smart communities. The Internet may well be the technological innovation of twentieth century. Amidst a wave of unbridled enthusiasm, Internet has penetrated almost every aspect of everyday life, from how we learn, shop, and play (Dertouzos, 1997; Jackson, 1999; Tapscott, 1996). Internet technologies have also revolutionized communication and interaction within companies (via Intranets), between businesses (B2B), between businesses and consumers (B2C) and vice versa (C2B), between consumers (C2C), and between peers (P2P) (Kiani, 1998). Indeed, conventional ways of doing business are being radically transformed. It is now hard to imagine any establishment that has not been affected (Leong et al., 2003). According to ITU statistics, global Internet market today is estimated to have over 500 million users (ITU, 2002). However, Internet users in developing countries only constitute a small percentage of total global users, reflecting fact that current distribution of Internet access needs to be restructured so that members of different societies benefit from digital revolution (Kamel and Hussein, 2002). For example, Table (1) shows that, on average, Arab countries are doing well along all basic Internet indicators than least developed countries of world. Nonetheless, on average, Arab countries are performing worse than world's average in terms of number of PCs. The worst performance for Arab countries along examined Internet metrics is evident in number of hosts per 1000 people, approximately 30 percent of Arab countries score less than average of least developed countries. The score of United Arab Emirates of 13.2 hosts per 1000 inhabitants is closest to world's average (Aladwani, 2003). The lack of Arabic online content is one of factors deterring information and communication technology (ICT) usage in Arab world, as it is a key enabler for creating compelling Internet content for Arabic speakers. In fact, Arabic is sixth most widely spoken language in world, with 175 million speakers, while share of Arabic content on Internet remains as low as 0. 1 per cent (El-Hage et al., 2003). Although there are several investigations into practices and profile of Internet users in west, little research has been done to investigate behavior and motivations of Internet users in Arab world and Egypt is no exception. The current study fills gap and tries to examine validity of some recently developed scales to measure usage patterns and perceptions of Internet in a non-Western culture. Internet evolution in Egypt The Internet started in Egypt in 1993 with 2,000 users (Kamel, 1998). As an attempt to diffuse Internet usage among society, cabinet of Egypt information and decision support center in collaboration with regional information technology software engineering center provided free Internet access on a trial basis to public, private, government and non-government organizations to entice users to venture into new technology. …
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