On 25 November, Sir Tim Berners-Lee and the Web Foundation have published the 'Contract for the Web'. This contract was prepared by a large group of international experts, including Ivan Herman, member of CWI's DIS research group and W3C Fellow on behalf of CWI. CWI also signed it.
Quoting from the Contract for the Web website: "Half of the world’s population still can’t get online. For the other half, the web’s benefits seem to come with far too many unacceptable risks: to our privacy, our democracy, our health and our security. Now for the first time ever, we have a global plan of action — the Contract for the Web — created by experts and citizens from across the world to make sure our online world is safe, empowering and genuinely for everyone. We invite governments, companies, civil society organizations and individuals to back the Contract and uphold its principles and clauses."
Individuals as well as organizations can publicly endorse this contract, alongside a number of organizations and companies, joining institutions like Google, Facebook, Reporters Sans Frontières, W3C, and the EFF.
Ivan Herman is a member of CWI’s Distributed and Interactive Systems (DIS) research group, which focuses on facilitating and improving the way people use interactive systems and how people communicate with each other. Group leader Pablo Cesar says: "We combine data science with a strong human-centric, empirical approach to understand the experience of users. This enables us to design and develop next generation intelligent and empathic systems. We base our results on realistic testing grounds and data sets, and embrace areas such as ubiquitous computing, human-centered multimedia systems, and languages".
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international community where Member organizations, a full-time staff, and the public work together to develop Web standards. Led by Web inventor and Director Tim Berners-Lee and CEO Jeff Jaffe, W3C's mission is to lead the Web to its full potential.
More information
- Contract for the Web
- If you would like to sign the Contract for the Web, see: contractfortheweb.org/action
- Sections WG C (Privacy and Data Rights) and WG D (Positive Tech), to which Ivan Herman contributed
- CWI’s Distributed and Interactive Systems (DIS) research group
Main principles of the Contract for the Web
A. Governments
Principle 1 - Ensure everyone can connect to the internet
Principle 2 - Keep all of the internet available, all of the time
Principle 3 - Respect and protect people’s fundamental online privacy and data rights
B. Companies
Principle 4 - Make the internet affordable and accessible to everyone
Principle 5 - Respect and protect people’s privacy and personal data to build online trust
Principle 6 - Develop technologies that support the best in humanity and challenge the worst
C. Citizens
Principle 7 - Be creators and collaborators on the Web
Principle 8 - Build strong communities that respect civil discourse and human dignity
Principle 9 - Fight for the Web
