Google and Facebook sign "Contract for the Web"

Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, has been trying to fix his creation for several years, especially after revelations from NSA's whistleblower, Edward Snowden, about online surveillance massive. However, the task took on a renewed urgency.

Countries are blocking more and more internet during elections or demonstrations. Last month, the Berners-Lee Web Foundation also saw a net slowdown in Internet growth as rural populations and women were disproportionately excluded from the online revolution.

As a result, Berners-Lee and its foundation launched a new "Web Marketplace" and succeeded in ensuring that Facebook and Google adhere to the principles of affordable access and privacy protection for consumers.

"Those of us online have their rights and freedoms at risk. We need a new contract for the Web, with clear and difficult responsibilities for those with the power to improve it, "Berners-Lee said in a statement.

The contract is light in detail at the moment, but will be clarified before full publication in May of next year – a key moment for which half of the world's population is expected to be online. The year 2019 also marks the 30th anniversary of the Web.

Facebook and Google certainly have every reason to want more people to connect online because that would expand their addressable markets. On the private front, these companies have had their share of scandals in the past year, including the debacle of Cambridge Analytica on Facebook, but the EU's general data protection regulation forces them to take more seriously the confidentiality of the data.

It should be noted that the contract comes into effect a few days after Berners-Lee said the giants might need to be disassociated due to excessive concentration in the technology sector.

The French government is in agreement with the contract, as is billionaire Richard Branson. Amazon, a growing competitor of Facebook and Google in the greedy online advertising market, would not have signed up for the new initiative.

"Each party will have to commit to solidifying and respecting certain values, changing the way it works, building trust and building trust among others," Berners-Lee told CNET at the Web Summit in Toronto. Lisbon. "We do not expect someone to do it out of altruism. We expect them to do this by collaboration. "