The likes of Google and Craigslist then added their voices to the dissent with the search giant opting to blackout its logo on its US site and the popular online classifieds service suspending its American operation for a day.
Hundreds of other websites, including Reddit, WordPress and Flickr, have also joined the protest against two proposed pieces of legislation, the Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (Pipa).
Sopa and Pipa are attempts to deal with the problem of online filesharing by granting authorities powers to close down websites that are making material, such as films, music and television programmes, available without the permission of the rights holder.
Following a complaint by a rights holder, these acts would allow website domains to be seized. If the website in question is not a US site or is not hosted in the US, then supporters of the bills want the power to force US search engines to remove links to the website and for US payment networks and advertisers to stop doing business with the site.
The protest is the result of a stand-off between the technology industry and the entertainment business.
On one side there is the likes of Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia’s co-founder, arguing the acts would “seriously damage the free and open internet” and breach America's First Amendment.
He defended the global blackout to The Telegraph, saying: “The general sentiment seemed to be that US law, as it impacts the internet, can affect everyone.
“I hope we send a broad global message that the internet as a whole will not tolerate censorship in response to mere allegations of copyright infringement.”
On the other hand there are senior figures in the entertainment industry, who are pushing for the legislation, dismissing the web strikes and defending Sopa. On Twitter earlier this week, News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch, an ardent supporter of Sopa, equated copying a film with publishing pornography and hate speech.
While Chris Dodd, the chairman and chief executive of the Motion Picture Association of America, said in a statement about Wikipedia’s actions: "A so-called 'blackout' is yet another gimmick, albeit a dangerous one, designed to punish elected and administration officials who are working diligently to protect American jobs from foreign criminals."
Only extremists are defending those websites which only to provide illegal downloads of pirated material. However, critics of the bills feel that rights holders are not sufficiently concerned about protecting innocent people from having their websites blocked.
An article in the Stanford Law Review last month described the bills as "an unprecedented, legally sanctioned assault on the internet’s critical technical infrastructure".
The two sides will have to focus on creating a proper and fair process by which criminal websites are appropriately policed, while ensuring adequate protection for those who are wrongly or unfairly accused.
Sopa has been halted, at least temporarily, following opposition from the White House, while Pipa is still under consideration by the US Senate.
The issue is clearly not going away with neither side looking likely to back down. The global blackout of the digital world’s encyclopaedia, has drawn a bold line in the sand which technology executives now need to cross in order to meet entertainment chiefs back at the negotiating table.
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