- The web should remain neutral and resist
attempts to fragment it into different services, web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee
has said.
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- 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.
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- He warned that if the US decided to go
ahead with a two-tier internet, the network would enter "a dark period".
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- Sir Tim was speaking at the start of
a conference on the future of the web.
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- "What's very important from my point
of view is that there is one web," he said.
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- "Anyone that tries to chop it into
two will find that their piece looks very boring."
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- An equal net
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- 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.
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- The World Wide Web Consortium, of which
Sir Tim is the director, believes in an open model.
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- 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.
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- This view is backed by companies like
Microsoft and Google, who have called for legislation to be introduced
to guarantee net neutrality.
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- The first steps towards this were taken
last week when members of the US House of Representatives introduced a
net neutrality bill.
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- Pay model
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- The internet community believes this
threatens the open model of the internet as broadband providers will become
gatekeepers to the web's content.
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- Providers that can pay will be able to
get a commercial advantage over those that cannot.
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- There is a fear that institutions like
universities and charities would also suffer.
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- The web community is also worried that
any charges would be passed on to the consumer.
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- Optimism
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- 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.
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- Speaking to reporters in Edinburgh at
the WWW2006 conference, he argued this was where the great benefit of the
internet lay.
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- "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.
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- 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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- But Sir Tim was optimistic that the internet
would resist attempts to fragment.
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- "I think it is one and will remain
as one," he said.
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- The WWW2006 conference will run until
Friday at the International Conference Centre in Edinburgh.
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