The NSF's appropriations act authorized NSF to "foster and support the development and use of computer and other scientific and engineering methods and technologies, primarily for research and education in the sciences and engineering." This allowed NSF to support NSFNET and related networking initiatives, but only to the extent that that support was ""primarily for research and education in the sciences and engineering"." And this in turn was taken to mean that use of NSFNET for commercial purposes was "not" allowed.