In response to the “creator of the web” proposed “Magna Carta for the web” to save the it from the destructive effects of abuse and discrimination, political manipulation, and other threats that plague the online world at the Web Summit in Lisbon:
Facebook & Google adopt Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s ‘contract for the web’ (thedrum.com).
An ambitious “contract for the web” championed by Sir Tim Berners-Lee has received some high-profile traction after both Facebook and Google signed up the new, tightened, set of internet standards.
Being the companies of highest virtual profile of the 60 that have agreed to the charter that is currently merely a noble yet somewhat wooly set of high-level aspirations for a “free and open web” that “will be further refined to provide a set of detailed standards in consultation with government and industry”:
Tim Berners-Lee launches campaign to save the web from abuse (theguardian.com).
…companies commit to making the internet affordable and accessible to all; respecting consumer privacy and personal data; and developing technologies that ensure the web is “a public good that puts people first”.
Certainly good PR for both with little actual need to follow through as yet, Facebook having been dogged by the Cambridge Analytica scandal involving the harvesting of user data (Blog 18th Mar. 2018) and Google’s privacy infringing tracking for ad revenue purposes which has resulted in anyone in Europe having to frustratingly opt in or out of cookie acceptance for just about every site visited since introduction of the EU’s General Protection Privacy Regulation (Latest Picks 22nd May 2018).
To his credit, Berners-Lee himself can see issues for some of the early signatories that may see them unable to comply, for example Google’s development of a censored version of its search engine for the Chines market:
“If you sign up to the principles, you can’t do censorship,” said Berners-Lee. “Will this be enough to make search engines push back? Will it be persuasive enough for the Chinese government to be more open? I can’t predict whether that will happen,” he said. Google did not respond to a request for comment.
What weight will be those lofty aspirations of the contract and PR be verses finally getting its foot back in the search engine door to the world’s largest e-commerce market?
Google is handing the future of the internet to China (foreignpolicy.com).
In late August, a group of free expression and human rights organizations published a joint letter proclaiming that the launch of a Chinese search application would represent “an alarming capitulation by Google on human rights.” Six U.S. senators, led by Marco Rubio and Mark Warner, sent a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai demanding answers to a series of queries about the company’s intentions.
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