The British inventor of world wide web warned on Saturday that the freedom of the internet is under threat by governments and corporations interested in controlling the web.
Tim Berners-Lee, a computer scientist who invented the web 25 years ago, called for a bill of rights that would guarantee the independence of the internet and ensure users' privacy. "If company can control your access to the internet, if they can control which websites they go to, then they have tremendous control over your life" Berners-Lee said at the London "Web We Want" festival on the future of the internet.
"If a government can block you going to, for example the oppositions political pages then they can give you a blinkered view of reality to keep themselves in power. Suddenly the power to abuse the open internet has become so tempting both for government and big companies."
Berners-Lee, 59, is director of the World Wide Web Consortium, a body which develops guidelines for the development of the internet. He called for an internal version of the "Magna Carta" the 13 th century English character credited with guaranteeing basic rights and freedoms.
Concerns over privacy and freedom on the internet have increased in the wake of the revelation of mass government monitoring of online activity following leaks by former US intelligence contractors Edward Snowden.
A ruling but the European Union to allow individuals to ask search engines such as google to remove links to information about them called the "right to be forgotten" has also raised concerns over the potential for censorship. "There have been lots of times that it has been abused so now the Magna Carta is about saying.......... I want a web where I'm not spied on."
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