Berners-Lee hits out at regulation of the web

Inventor of the world wide web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, has warned the coalition government to "be careful" if it is considering any future regulation of the web, restating his opposition to the Digital Economy Act.

Speaking to press ahead of his keynote at RSA Conference Europe on Thursday, Berners-Lee made clear his distrust of government regulation of the web.

He described the French government, which famously enacted a three strikes law to disconnect persistent illegal file shares - as "going down a dangerous path", and added, "I was not impressed by the Digital Economy Act".

"Civilisation is not about governments disconnecting families from the web because one member has consistently stolen music," he argued.

Berners-Lee added that while many complain about government censorship of the web in countries like Egypt and China, they should look more closely at their own governments.

He cited the United States as one country where "web sites can be taken down by governmental action when they are felt to have violated copyright laws".

Berners-Lee also expressed fears about domain name governance, arguing that it is the one "centralised" point on a largely decentralised world wide web and therefore has the potential to be abused.

"I would love to solve the persistence problem. Domain names at present are rented, not bought", he added, giving the example of the domain for a car manufacturer, which could be taken over and run by enthusiasts to provide information and manuals on old automobiles even after the company has gone out of business.