WWW - Magna Carta

Sir Tim Berners-Lee: World wide web needs bill of rights

(Source: http://www.mysciencework.com/)

Recently Sir Time Berners-Lee, the man who created the world wide web, has come out and said that the world wide web needs a Magna Carta type document, which protects the rights of its users. In an interview which he had with BBC Breakfast, Sir Tim has said that the issue should be considered as important as human rights issues. He said 

"It's time for us to make a big communal decision...In front of us are two roads - which way are we going to go?...Are we going to set up something like a Magna Carta for the world wide web and say, actually, now it's so important, so much part of our lives, that it becomes on a level with human rights?" (Lee, 2014)

My opinion on the issue is that the idea of having a Magna Carta type document in place for the world wide web is an incredibly vital one. This is because the world wide web has become an incredible large part of every bodies lives, with the Culture-ist saying that over a third of the population of the Earth uses the internet. This further increases the argument that there needs to be some sort of documentation in place which limits what information companies and governments can gather from peoples use of the internet, because at the moment there are not many laws in place which protect peoples privacy on the internet, and therefore having a constitutionally binding document for the world wide web, would ensure that people would know what rights they have, in terms of privacy on the internet and what information/surveillance governments and businesses can do within it. However the chances of this happening are in my view limited because at the end of the day governments and businesses have the perfect tool, in the world wide web, to monitor and gather information on people, which means that this type of document will probably never happen. 

References

BBC News, 2014.  Sir Tim Berners-Lee: World wide web needs bill of rights [Online]. BBC News. Available from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26540635 [Accessed: 12th March 2014]

Culture-ist, 2013. More Than 2 Billion People Use the Internet, Here’s What They’re Up To [Online]. Culture-ist. Available from: http://www.thecultureist.com/2013/05/09/how-many-people-use-the-internet-more-than-2-billion-infographic/ [Accessed 12th March 2014]