The Internet is a global, openly easy to get to series of interconnected computer networks that broadcast data by packet switching by the standard Internet Protocol (IP). It is a "set of connections" that consists of millions of slighter domestic, academic, business, and government networks, which jointly take assorted information and services, such as electronic mail, online chat, file transfer, and the interlinked web pages and other resources of the World Wide Web.

The Internet and the WWW (World Web Wide) are not one and the same. The Internet is a compilation of interconnected computer networks, connected by copper wires, fiber-optic cables, wireless connections, and so on. In difference, the Web is a set of unified documents and other resources, related by hyperlinks and URLs. The World Wide Web is one of the services available via the Internet, together with assorted others as well as e-mail, file sharing, online gaming etc.. Still, "the Internet" and "the Web" are frequently used interchangeably in non-technical locale.

It's Microsoft's fault (really!).

Non-technical users started referring to the WWW as "The Internet" when Windows 95 introduced an icon for the web browser which was captioned "The Internet".

http://techpubs.sgi.com/library/dynaweb_docs/0650/SGI_EndUser/books/SWin_UG/sgi_html/figures/swin.gif