DRIVERS' LICENSES FOR THE SUPERHIGHWAY?

The man credited with co-inventing the World Wide Web says all those driving the information superhighway should be licensed to make them as accountable as drivers on the road. Robert Cailliau says this would help trace child porn and racist sites, among other benefits.

But the Belgian software scientist insists to Reuters Television that the system must remain open and neutral, free of heavy-handed rules governing content. He says he expected a "micropayment" system to be agreed in due course by the international computer industry consortium which sets standards for the Web - meaning, Web users would have the option of paying a small fee in return for downloading advertising-free pages quickly from uncluttered cyberspace.

Cailliau says licensing all Net users would make them aware of their "duties as well as their rights," according to Reuters. ``The Net is another world, potentially a dangerous place. You can harm people and you can get harmed, just like on the road,'' he tells Reuters. ``If you go through an education process before getting an account then you're better prepared to go out there.''

And just how would this deal with "offensive" Web sites and "spam mail"? "The Internet and the Web are completely outside geographical state boundaries," he says. "This is not dissimilar to air. If you make pollution in one place it travels across the frontiers. For very similar reasons, I think we need some regulation of Net behavior which is internationally agreed, globally agreed."

Yet "the system is open, neutral and non-proprietary, and must remain so," he continues. "One has to be extremely careful what it is one regulates. We should regulate not the content but the behavior of people."