Tim Berners Lee on Freedom on the Web

Tim Berners Lee is the one person, every web surfer owes something to. In Dec 1990, he was the one who demonstrated the functionality of the web on the Internet as we know today. He is credited with developing the protocol underlying the framework of the Web--viz., HTTP or HyperText Transfer Protocol. Although rudimentary precursors to Todays Internet were present since the day of the ARPANET back in the 60s, it was the introduction of the very important protocol HTTP that brought the web and the Internet to the mainstream.

So obviously, if Tim Berners Lee has something to say about the web and the Internet, one has to sit up and take notice. Recently he published an article on the well respected Science journal 'Scientific American' about his concerns about the waning of Freedom and Neutrality of the Web. You can read the article here.

What is important is that it raises the very important question of what happens when certain individual organizations and companies decide to armtwist the net surfers into following a certain behavior that is profitable to only those organizations/companies and to no one else. Take for example, Apple itunes. It is the most proprietary platform for Music that you can imagine. If you want to listen to the music it offers, you have to make sure you register your device, promise not to share your music with anyone, use only the features the software offers, remain dependent on the vendor and pay up every time you want to listen to something new. Not just that, even the hardware devices are locked in to the itunes account, you cant even change the battery of your device if you wanted to--in short total usurping of your Freedom to use your own hardware and software as you like. In direct violation of the principles on which the Internet community and its philosophies are based. The Internet and the web was designed to be the most open platform of our generation and the generations to follow. However, vested interests like Apple and Microsoft chip away at the very foundations of those principles by monopolizing the web and Business practices that benefit noone else but their coffers...