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Tim Berners-Lee, the pioneer of the World Wide Web, launches a plan to fix issues related to the Internet.
According to Berners-Lee, the plan was created as a way to act against the prevalence of issues like misinformation, privacy violations, and surveillance on the Internet. The plan involves the Contract for the Web, a document that requires governments, companies, and individuals to abide by a set of nine principles. The goal of the contract and its principles is to protect the Internet and act as a guide to safeguard it.
Under the contract, governments are required to ensure that everyone can connect to the Internet, which should be constantly available. Governments should also ensure that people can use the Internet safely and without fear.
Other principles of the contract urge companies to make the Internet accessible and affordable to everyone and to develop technologies that people can benefit from. In addition, companies are also called on to build online trust by respecting and protecting people’s privacy and personal data.
The rest of the principles urge individuals to create valuable online content, build strong online communities that provide safety and a sense of belonging to users, and support the web so that it remains accessible to the public at all times.
The World Wide Web Foundation, a non-profit organization and one of the contract’s backers, is currently working on tools that can assess the contract’s effectiveness.
More than 150 organizations, including Google and Facebook, have backed the contract. The German, French, and Ghanese governments have also endorsed the contract. These governments and organizations pledge to implement the contract’s principles and are listed as its endorsers. Organizations that fail to follow the principles will be removed from the list of endorsers.