Mr. Tim Berners-Lee (photo: Wikipedia).
Mr. Tim Berners-Lee is an English computer scientist, best known for inventing the World Wide Web, the first web browser. He now plans to build a new version of the web browser that allows users to control their data.
For years Berners-Lee has expressed aversion to large corporations for imposing restrictions on the free environment on the Internet. He dislikes how groups like Facebook, Google and Amazon centralize power on the Internet, nor how these companies control user data. So he is working on a new platform to “declare war” with Big Tech.
According to India Times, Mr. Berners-Lee has been secretly working with startup Inrupt for the past 9 months. And finally, Inrupt is going to the world premiere this week.
Inrupt is built on the Solid platform, which he and his colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have been working on for years. Solid was designed like the Internet in the early days, pristine and free, and users can access the platform through the Inrupt browser. He also tried to open a basic browser of Inrupt, which displays a number of applications such as calendar, chat box, music, contacts … look quite similar to combining Google Drive with WhatsApp, Spotify and saving services. cloud storage.
Screenshot India Times.
According to the New York Times, the difference is that for this platform, users can control their data such as visited website history, shopping history, exercise habits, music … in a safe. Personal data, usually a small part of server data.
Companies may have access to a person’s data if permitted, through a secure affiliate link for specific purposes such as loan application processing or personalized advertising distribution. Companies may link to and use personal information selectively, but not in storage.
Berners-Lee believes that using Solid is a way for people to get out of the data monopoly that companies like Google and Facebook are trying to create.
Of course, Mr. Berners-Lee is well aware that what he is doing will really upset Big Tech. But he was not interested and stated clearly in the interview:
“We’re not talking to Facebook and Google about whether to roll out a complete change [which makes] all of their business models completely inactive overnight… We don’t ask for their permission. . “
