Thaindian News

London, Apr.21 (ANI): The inventor of the web has said that governments must act to preserve the principle of net neutrality.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee told the BBC that legislation might be needed if self-regulation failed.

He was asked by the British Government to negotiate an agreement on an open internet between service providers and content firms like the BBC and Skype.

Sir Tim, however, said he would prefer self-regulation by the Internet industry, but progress has been slow.

“If it fails the government has to be absolutely ready to legislate,” he said.

He added: “It may be that the openness of the internet, we should just put into law.”

Net neutrality, the idea that all traffic on the Internet should be treated equally, has been a controversial issue in the United States and is now moving up the political agenda in the UK.

Internet Service Providers have claimed that they need to be able to control the growing traffic online, and content creators fear that the result could be a two-speed Internet.

Sir Tim warned that any move to discriminate between different content businesses would be going too far.

Professor William Dutton of the Oxford Internet Institute warned that enshrining net neutrality in law had its dangers.

“Once you allow the state in, you open the door to all sorts of regulation of the internet controls on content creation,” he said.

Sir Tim, who was speaking at the opening of the World Wide Web Consortium’s UK offices in Oxford, said that Internet access was now becoming a human right. (ANI)