World Wide Web inventor bats for int'l internet regulation

Berners-Lee, who is the director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), a body that sets benchmarks and standards for the Internet, said a lot of discussions and deliberations are underway on various aspects of internet regulation and the implementation of the same in different countries.

"At the moment a lot of discussion is going on whether international governance (on internet) should be through the countries or if it should be done independently. I think probably we will end up with multi-stakeholder system where some of it comes from organisations like United Nations and foundations," he told media persons on the sidelines of the 20th International World Wide Web conference here.

Web is free and unconditional, and without any government intervention. However, there is an absolute requirement for monitoring it by a global body and that is different from intervention, he said. Berners-Lee, however, cautioned that monitoring is different from intervention and there will be a deeper requirement in the foreseeable future to monitor the web and that has to be based on global standards.

He felt implementation of regulation will be a tough job given the different jurisdictions of countries. "One of the problems is coordination among law enforcement agencies across different countries," he said. According to media reports, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called for 'global internet standards' that would allow for the freedom of information flow while limiting abuses and illegal activity online.

French administration too reportedly said that it wanted to gather the opinion of Internet operators on the issue of what regulation is needed for the internet, before the upcoming G8 summit, slated for May 26-27, to be held in Deauville, in northern France. To a query, Berners-Lee said in India women do not participate in public life much and internet can be used for further educating them.