Academics face being forced off the Internet by electronic commerce, says the head of the laboratory where the World Wide Web was invented

Chris Llewellyn Smith, director general of Cern, the European laboratory for particle physics where the World Wide Web was invented by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989, said that collaboration between academics on the Internet is under threat.

Llewellyn Smith said that the academic community was an early and enthusiastic user of networking, but added: ?We are concerned the explosive commercial use of the Web could force academics into the margins.?

Rodney Max-Lino, IT manager at the University of the West of England, said much of the blame was with the academics themselves.

?The Web was biased towards the academics, but they have just sat back. If you want more space you have to make yourself heard,? said Max-Lino.