The creator of the聽World Wide Web聽Tim Berners-Lee has launched a new聽start-up called Inrupt which will help create聽a decentralised internet where corporations no longer control and own user data.
Speaking in a blog post, Berners-Lee explained that the web has become a place where users hand over data to internet giants for products and services.
To combat this he has been working on an open source platform called Solid with researchers at MIT, which will let people choose where to store their data and who has access to it.
This means that instead of storing data in silos 鈥� so Facebook has some of your data, Twitter has some, Microsoft has some 鈥� users control their data in one place and can decide which apps have a window into it.
鈥淚鈥檝e always believed the web is for everyone. That鈥檚 why I and others fight fiercely to protect it,鈥� said Berners-Lee, who has been openly critical of tech giants owning user data.
鈥淭he changes we鈥檝e managed to bring have created a better and more connected world. But for all the good we鈥檝e achieved, the web has evolved into an engine of inequity and division; swayed by powerful forces who use it for their own agendas.鈥�
Building on existing web protocols Solid users can keep their own data on the cloud service, server or another platform in personal online data stores or ‘pods’, rather than having it stored on centralised servers. The team encourages people to think of these pods as like their own private website.
鈥淲hen you post comments or videos online, your friends can view them with whatever app they like, such as an album viewer or a social feed,鈥� says the website. 鈥淚t鈥檚 your data, that can be shaped in any way or form. You can have as many pods as you like, and they live on Solid-enabled聽web servers.鈥�
Thanks to the open source nature of Solid, personal data can be instantly moved between applications and locations while also giving more control and privacy.
Inrupt is the first commercial venture to come out of solid and Berners-Lee partnered with John Bruce to create the company.
Bruce was CEO at a cyber security company Resilient, which was聽acquired by IBM in 2016 and at Quickcomm, which was acquired by Vodafone
Today, I am proud to announce my next venture, inrupt. Partnering with Sir Tim Berners- Lee, we are resetting the balance of power on the web and reigniting its true potential. Learn more here:
鈥� johnwbruce (@johnwbruce)
“Inrupt will be the infrastructure allowing Solid to flourish. Its mission is to provide commercial energy and an ecosystem to help protect the integrity and quality of the new web built on Solid,鈥� said Berners-Lee.
“Inrupt’s success is totally aligned to Solid’s success.鈥�
Developers are already able to get to work on their own decentralised apps with tools through the Inrupt site.