Inventor of the World Wide Web Tells People to Demand Facebook, Google, and Twitter for their Data

Does Tim Berners-Lee, the man credited for inventing the Internet, have anything against Facebook, Google, and Twitter? I personally don't think he does, although Berners-Lee does have a lot to say about the data that these networks and online giants are keeping on their users.

As you probably already know, your data is valuable as it is personal. But this is the same data that you're using to make the ultimate trade off in order to use these supposedly free online services and social networks.

And to Tim Berners-Lee, that's something you should be concerned about. He makes the argument that the data is more valuable to the user as individual than to any given firm. He also goes so far to say that users should demand for their data from the major players in the Internet like Facebook, Google, and Twitter.

The computer could be very valuable if I have the value of my data. One of the issues of social networking silos is that they have the data and I don't. Certainly, people have gone around and demanded their data. So Google has in fact a you-can-have-your-data-back policy.

I think there will be consumer pressure on companies to provide that data. But then maybe we need to see standardization between them or products that do conversion.

-- Tim Berners-Lee

There you have it, straight from the inventor of the world wide web. Tell us what you think: are you with him or against him?

Article by Hazel Chua
Gigadgetry: Cool Gadgets, Tech News, Quirky Devices