The future of the Internet

Can we imagine the Internet, and therefore our modern way of life, without Tim Berners-Lee? This is, of course, a rhetorical question, but the facts speak for themselves: Berners-Lee was instrumental in the birth of the World Wide Web. It was his vision at the end of the 1980s of giving scientists at CERN, the Geneva-based European Particle Physics Laboratory, a means of sharing data and findings anywhere in the world that resulted in the pioneering network that we know today as the Internet. In doing so, he created a framework for linking up billions of computers.

For Berners-Lee, an example of a potential improvement is the optimization of the way social media works and how personal data is dealt with. “People realize that their personal data is being used in a system and that this system is being used to manipulate people.” So, what is the solution? “Change and reengineer some of it. There is a lot more that we can expect from the Internet, that we can achieve, but it won’t come by itself.”

Tim Berners-Lee sees the Internet as the basis for innovation that has the potential to scale new heights. “What I’d like people to do is to build systems in which we can more or less establish a common understanding of what is true about the world. Maybe there will be something like Wikipedia for democracy, where we can go to form a common understanding democratically about what decisions that we should take.”

Berners-Lee believes the Internet must be open, free and accessible to all, and that also goes for the Internet of Things (IoT). With eager anticipation, he views the progression of the Web from a network of information (Web 1.0) to a network of people (Web 2.0/Social Media) and now to a network of things (Web 3.0/IoT). “The Internet of Things is a lot about automation. So, what is clearly important is that the connected systems work well together so that no matter who you buy your Internet of Things gadgets from — whether industry or consumer — they should all work together.” The use of personal data is key here too.

In response to the latest developments and challenges, Berners-Lee has been working on the creation of the platform Solid (Social Linked Data), which was researched and implemented at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Oxford University. Solid helps “to break open the silos” between individual networks, as Berners-Lee explains. The objective is for data to no longer be stored by individual companies such as Google, Amazon or social media providers, even if their software is being used. Instead, it should be stored where the user wants it to be. That way, everyone gains more control over their own data, which is stored in pods.

The settings for each pod would allow users to decide for themselves which providers, such as health apps, are allowed to access the data it contains. “It will be very powerful for the individual,” says Berners-Lee. In addition, this model would allow anyone to develop new apps, since it would be technically possible to gain access to the data – assuming permission is granted by the person who owns it. Just like with the Internet 30 years ago, Tim Berners-Lee is convinced that Solid is the digital future. And only the future will tell if his latest invention can improve on his most famous one.