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Wednesday, April 05, 2017

"The Trump administration’s decision to allow internet service providers (ISPs) to sign away their customers’ privacy and sell the browsing habits of their customers is “disgusting” and “appalling”, according to Sir Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the world wide web. Talking to the Guardian as he was declared recipient of the prestigious Association for Computing Machinery’s AM Turing award on Tuesday, Berners-Lee expressed mounting concerns about the direction of the internet he did so much to promote. Berners-Lee expressed particular concern for the Federal Communications Commission’s decision to scrap an Obama-era rule that would have prevented ISPs from harvesting their customers web logs. 'That bill was a disgusting bill, because when we use the web, we are so vulnerable,' he said. Berners-Lee also discussed Republican politicians’ plans to roll back the so-called net neutrality protections that are the backbone of an open internet, how his own legacy intersects with the great Alan Turing’s, and the astonishing progress of the web since he launched the very first website on 1 August 1991. Berners-Lee has spent years fighting to protect an open internet and against privatization of personal data. The 51-year-old prize could scarcely go to a more appropriate recipient. Turing’s innovations helped to standardize computing, and Berners-Lee helped to make standardized conversation between computers possible for the layman. Berners-Leewill accept the award on 24 June at a ceremony in San Francisco. Sir Tim, congratulations on the award."

The long headline is a series of paragraphs by Guardian, in opening a report here.

A related Guardian item, here.

[italics added in the extended headline] There is substantially more in the quoted item; with both links deserving reader follow-up.