Facebook and Google sign up to Tim Berners-Lee ‘contract’

Facebook and Google have signed up to new internet standards designed by world wide web founder Tim Berners-Lee, who said just last week that the companies may have to be broken up to reduce their dominance.

The “contract for the web” will require internet companies to respect data privacy and “support the best in humanity”, after a year in which they have faced unprecedented criticism for data privacy scandals and the spread of fake news, hate speech and online abuse.

“Those of us who are online are seeing our rights and freedoms threatened,” Sir Tim will say at the Web Summit tech conference in Lisbon on Monday evening. “We need a new contract for the web, with clear and tough responsibilities for those who have the power to make it better.”

Nearly 60 companies, governments and business leaders have signed up to the contract, including Facebook, Google, the French government and billionaire Richard Branson. Amazon, one of the “huge companies” named in a report published alongside the contract, has not signed up.

Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The contract sets out high-level principles for a “free and open web”, such as improving internet access and promoting privacy. But according to a spokesperson, the standards will be more detailed after consultations with governments and companies, and could include a commitment to net neutrality, which the British computer scientist has fiercely advocated for after a rollback in the US.

The World Wide Web Foundation, a campaign group founded by Sir Tim, highlighted other threats to the internet in a report published alongside the contract, such as algorithmic bias built into automated tools, and the fact that more than half the population, especially poorer people and women, do not have access to the internet.

“Online decisions with serious real-life consequences are increasingly being made by algorithms and machines that are replicating biases and reinforcing inequalities found offline,” the report said.

Sir Tim has become increasingly outspoken about companies that he says act as “gatekeepers” to the internet and “control which ideas and opinions are seen and shared”.

Last week, Sir Tim told Reuters that companies such as Facebook and Google had grown so powerful they might need to be split up unless rivals could reduce their influence. Earlier this year, he launched a start-up, Inrupt, to challenge their dominance with a new “decentralised web”, where users own and control their data.