Web Typography history basically starts when the first websites came out & designers were not able to control which font was displayed on their page. In 1995, Netscape introduced the font tag. It allows the designer to choose a font to be displayed on the designed site. Also, it allows the designer to have fall back fonts (Wikipedia, 2009). Which are fonts that are in the font-family list that if for some reason the viewer didn't have the listed font installed the computer would go to the next font on the list. This happens until there is a compatible font to display that the viewer has installed.
I do agree that there is an issue with legality. Designers could possibly use fonts that they do not have the license to. There is really no way to determine whether or not they do have the license without a thorough investigation of the computer itself. The font legality issue is same throughout not only web design but print design as well.
I think that web typography technology can only increase. I believe that one day the font that is specified by the designer is the font that will be displayed with no fall back fonts. Obviously, that is a while away considering that are umpteen amount of fonts out there and to have ALL of them on a computer is an unrealistic standard with a minimum a terabyte of memory. I can just see a time when a designer specifies a font and that's it. Considering how far we have come in other means of web typography such as the font tag in 1995; when previously there was no way to even specify a font. I will stress it one more time so I don't sound stupid for stating this, it is YEARS away until this POSSIBLY could happen.
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