Berners-Lee calls for net neutrality, questions DRM

Stephen Withers
Monday, 05 March 2007 12:41

Your IT - Home IT

"I feel that a nondiscriminatory Internet is very important for a society based on the World Wide Web," Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, told the US House of Representatives subcommittee on telecommunications and the Internet last week.

"The most important principle of the web is this universality," he said.

"Keeping the web universal, independent of hardware, independent  of software, independent of who happens to be your Internet service provider at the moment..." is a core valus of the web, he explained.

During his evidence, Berners-Lee repeatedly stressed the importance of maintaining the separation of transport and services.

"Non-discriminatory Internet provision is very important to a society based on the World Wide Web... we have to give it a special treatment." Decades ago, it was important to prevent interference with the mail, as that was how the nation functioned.

"The important thing is that anything should be able to link to anything."

If there was a chance that compromising on net neutrality could interfere with makets and democracy, Berners-Lee said "I would always be erring on the side of keeping the medium to be the blank sheet, of allowing me to connect, if I connect to the Internet, to connect to whoever I want."