WWW Inventor Building New Internet Run By Users, Not Corporations

CYBERSPACE—Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the scientist who created the concept and technology that became the World Wide Web in 1989—posting the world’s first website in 1991 from a small lab inside the Swiss research center CERN—says that his world-changing creation has fallen into the hands of global corporations, and now he has come up with a new invention to take it back. According to a post Saturday on Medium.com, the 63-year-old Berners-Lee—who was knighted in 2004 for his work that revolutionized the way the world communicates—said that along with a small group of scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he is developing a new version of the internet that will allow users full control over their own data. “I’ve always believed the web is for everyone. That’s why I and others fight fiercely to protect it. The changes we’ve managed to bring have created a better and more connected world,” Berners-Lee wrote. “But for all the good we’ve achieved, the web has evolved into an engine of inequity and division; swayed by powerful forces who use it for their own agendas.” The World Wide Web inventor said that he and his group have created a new open-source platform known as “Solid” that will “restore the power and agency of individuals on the web.” The new platform achieves that goal by trading in the current model used by companies such as Google and Facebook in which users “have to hand over personal data to digital giants in exchange for perceived value,” the scientist wrote. “As we’ve all discovered, this hasn’t been in our best interests,” he continued. “Solid is how we evolve the web in order to restore balance — by giving every one of us complete control over data, personal or not, in a revolutionary way.” Berners-Lee’s announcement came one day after Facebook revealed that its servers had fallen victim to hackers and data on about 50 million Facebook users had been breached. The hack was just the latest in a series of Facebook scandals over the unauthorized release of user information. “I have been imagining this for a very long time,” Berners-Lee told the tech news publication Fast Company. “We have to do it now. It’s a historical moment.” Berners-Lee said that he has started a new business, Inrupt, to put the new Solid version of the internet, in which users retain complete control over access to their personal data, into effect—but he also told Fast Company that he expected the corporate giants of the internet to fight back, a prospect for which, he said, he is prepared. “We are not talking to Facebook and Google about whether or not to introduce a complete change where all their business models are completely upended overnight,” he told Fast Company. “We are not asking their permission.” Photo by Paul Clark / Wikimedia Commons