Web inventor warns of 'dark' net
Jonathan
Fildes / BBC | May 24 2006
The web should remain neutral and resist
attempts to fragment it into different services, web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee
has said.
Recent attempts in the US to try to charge for different
levels of online access web were not "part of the internet model,"
he said in Edinburgh.
He warned that if the US decided to go ahead with a
two-tier internet, the network would enter "a dark period".
Sir Tim was speaking at the start of a conference on
the future of the web.
"What's very important from my point of view is
that there is one web," he said.
"Anyone that tries to chop it into two will find
that their piece looks very boring."
An equal net
The British scientist developed the web in 1989 as
an academic tool to allow scientists to share data. Since then it has exploded
into every area of life.
However, as it has grown, there have been increasingly
diverse opinions on how it should evolve.
The World Wide Web Consortium, of which Sir Tim is
the director, believes in an open model.
This is based on the concept of network neutrality,
where everyone has the same level of access to the web and that all data
moving around the web is treated equally.
This view is backed by companies like Microsoft and
Google, who have called for legislation to be introduced to guarantee net
neutrality.
The first steps towards this were taken last week when
members of the US House of Representatives introduced a net neutrality bill.
Pay model
But telecoms companies in the US do not agree. They
would like to implement a two-tier system, where data from companies or
institutions that can pay are given priority over those that cannot.
This has particularly become an issue with the transmission
of TV shows over the internet, with some broadband providers wanting to
charge content providers to carry the data.
The internet community believes this threatens the
open model of the internet as broadband providers will become gatekeepers
to the web's content.
Providers that can pay will be able to get a commercial
advantage over those that cannot.
There is a fear that institutions like universities
and charities would also suffer.
The web community is also worried that any charges
would be passed on to the consumer.
Optimism
Sir Tim said this was "not the internet model".
The "right" model, as exists at the moment, was that any content
provider could pay for a connection to the internet and could then put any
content on to the web with no discrimination.
Speaking to reporters in Edinburgh at the WWW2006 conference,
he argued this was where the great benefit of the internet lay.
"You get this tremendous serendipity where I can
search the internet and come across a site that I did not set out to look
for," he said.
A two-tier system would mean that people would only
have full access to those portions of the internet that they paid for and
that some companies would be given priority over others.
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More info can be found by searching 'Net Neutrality'
There are a number of bills before the U.S. Congress RIGHT NOW, so do a
little research and send some emails off to protest any corporatization.
To illustrate the cunning and deceptive tactics being used by those who
want to charge the 'tolls' they have established their own lobby group
under the name
HandsOffTheInternet, yet they are the ones who want to change it.