Tim Berners-Lee launches 'Contract for the Web' to govern internet giants and governments

Google, Facebook and others sign-up to Berners-Lee's 'global plan of action to make our online world safe and empowering for everyone'

Sir Tim Berners-Lee has launched what he has called a ‘Contract for the Web', intended to govern the behaviour of both internet giants, such as Google and Facebook, and governments.

The Contract describes itself as "a global plan of action to make our online world safe and empowering for everyone". It adds that while it "has changed the world for good and improved the lives of billions… the web comes with too many unacceptable costs".

The Contract is supported by more than 150 organisations, including Google, Facebook, GitHub, Reddit and DuckDuckGo.

The Contract contains a total of nine principles - three aimed at governments, three for companies and three for individuals.

For governments, Principle 1 is to "ensure everyone can connected to the internet", with access to broadband internet available for at least 90 per cent of citizens by 2030, open-access rules on wholesale infrastructure in areas where competition is non-existent, and ensuring "systematically excluded populations" can get "meaningful internet access".

Principle 2 is to "keep all of the internet available, all of the time" - something that Berners-Lee may wish to take-up with, for example, the Chinese government.

Principle 3, meanwhile, is about respecting and protecting people's fundamental online privacy and data rights, such as "minimising their own data collection to what is adequate, relevant and necessary" to achieve specific public interest goals. Again, Berners-Lee might want to have words with President Xi Jinping.

Principles 4, 5 and 6 relate to companies, obliging them to provide affordable internet access to everyone. In particular, crafting policies that "address the needs of systematically excluded groups", and providing ever-better quality service. They are also tasked, under Principle 5, with respecting and protecting people's online privacy and personal data - a more challenging principle for many of the signatories to genuinely abide by.

Principle 6, meanwhile, requires companies to "develop technologies that support the best in humanity and challenge the worst" by, for example, "investing in and supporting the digital commons". This includes promoting interoperability and open standards, and maximising accessibility.

Individuals don't get off scot-free. Principle 7 requires ordinary Joes to "be creators and collaborators on the web… by being active participants in shaping the web", building "strong communities that respect civil discourse and human dignity" under principle 8, and fighting for the web, so that it "remains open and a global public resource for people everywhere, now and in the future".

The Contract, signed by Google, Facebook and other internet giants, comes just a year after Berners-Lee called for them to be broken up.

When he's not busy writing contracts for all and sundry, Berners-Lee is working on Inrupt, a decentralised web more akin to his original vision, which recently scooped-up £5 million in venture capital funding, and a venture intended to commercialise his Solid decentralised web project.