“Minitel: The Online World France Built Before the Web”
▻https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/cyberspace/minitel-the-online-world-france-built-before-the-web
Minitel enthusiasts cherished the network’s privacy and anonymity. In late 1984, Minitel engineers added a feature to the terminal that saved the last page visited and made it easier for the user to pick up an interrupted session—as a browser cookie does today. The public outcry was swift and brutal. (...) Some 3,000 terminals were returned in protest. The PTT soon dropped this feature.