One year after he announced that he was working on a project called Solid that would allow internet users full control over their personal data, World Wide Web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee revealed a plan this week he calls the “Contract for the Web.”
The “contract,” which Berners-Lee created with 80 other experts as part of his World Wide Web Foundation, would guarantee internet access to every person on the planet, while also aiming to “boost privacy protections online, reduce digital incivility and discourage government crackdowns on the Web,” according to a report by Forbes.com.
The “contract,” however, is simply a set of principles that signers agree to uphold, without any new technology or enforcement mechanisms. Nonetheless, the governments of several countries—including Germany, France and Ghana—have signed on the set of principles, as have tech giants including Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Reddit.
“The power of the web to transform people’s lives, enrich society and reduce inequality is one of the defining opportunities of our time,” Berners-Lee said, as quoted by the site Verdict. “But if we don’t act now—and act together—to prevent the web being misused by those who want to exploit, divide and undermine, we are at risk of squandering that potential.”
But the World Wide Web inventor acknowledged that the “contract” merely offers a “roadmap” to build “a better web,” while admitting, “it will not happen unless we all commit to the challenge.”
“We’re launching the contract for the web for the world’s first-ever global action plan to protect the web as a force for good,” said Adrian Lovett, CEO of the World Wide Web Foundation, in a CNBC interview.
The problem is that many of the big tech companies, as well as governments, engage in the very practices that the Berners-Lee wants to eradicate. Facebook, for example, was hit earlier this year with a $5 billion fine for selling or leaking user data.
As AVN.com reported, earlier this week a Democratic senator rolled out legislation that would grant online users the same type of control over personal data called for in the “contract.” But the proposed United States law would back up its online privacy requirements with heavy fines for tech companies that misuse private data.
In 1989, Berners-Lee—working in the Swiss research center CERN—created the concepts and technology that became the World Wide Web, which is now the underlying structure of most online communications. Berners-Lee posted the world’s first website in 1991.
Photo By Open Data Institute Knowledge for Everyone / Wikimedia Commons
