Internet Service Providers have no business spying on Net traffic: Tim Berners-Lee

As World Wide Web (WWW) is in its 29th year, its founder Tim Berners-Lee is concerned about issues such as privacy and loss of personal data.

To ensure data protection, there needs to be a push for legislation and constitutional methods. Internet Service Providers have no business spying on internet traffic, he said interacting with students, lecturers and industry representatives at SSN Institutions.

Technology is the future, and a centre of excitement. It is the centre of economic growth but there are many issues about technology. Not everything is about paradise. The recent privacy issue, fixing of elections, targeted advertisement on Facebook, advertising for political reach are worrying. “I don’t know what the rule is in India. However, as I grew up in the UK political advertising on TV was illegal as it is so powerful and manipulative,” he said.

Lee was, however, happy as nearly 50 per cent of the world’s population will be on the Web by November. It’s a major achievement time to celebration. But, a lot of efforts, including regulations and affordability, need to be done to bring the rest half on to the Web, he said.

Last March, in an open letter to mark 28 years since he submitted his original proposal for the World Wide Web, Lee said the Web as an open platform that would allow everyone, everywhere to share information, access opportunities and collaborate across geographic and cultural boundaries. In many ways, the Web has lived up to this vision, though it has been a recurring battle to keep it open. But worrying factors are loss of personal data and spread of misinformation on the Web. Also, political advertising online needs transparency and understanding.

He re-emphasised these issues at today’s interaction with SSN students. “A lot of things need to be fixed and improved on the Web,” he said. Lee said engineering services have an effect on humanity as a whole, and democracy as a whole, he said.

“When WWW was founded, it was lot more decentralised. However, in the last few years, it has become lot more centralised. There used to be just one centre, anybody can sell a website. We have to re-decentralise the Web as there are a number of silos in operations in the Web,” he said.

It is important to look at how to bring about the rest 50 per cent on to the Web by looking at issues of affordability and also on issues that affect everybody like privacy or getting spied on by ISPs, he said.

There were some kids trying to make some money by running a website and they are using Google advertising, which gives money every time somebody clicks on the link. These sites make more money when somebody clicks the links. Accessing personal data, they use algorithms to show the person the right content, he said.