Tim Berners-Lee calls for internet freedoms to be protected

In the wake of US and UK web spying revelations, the inventor of HTML warns against government and corporate takeover of internet

Tim Berners-Lee, the engineer who invented HTML, has warned that the internet must be safeguarded against attempts to control it by governments and major organisations.

Berners-Lee was speaking as he and five other internet engineers were jointly awarded for their work in the inaugural £1m Queen Elizabeth prize for engineering at Buckingham Palace.

"The original design of the web of 24 years ago was for a universal space, we didn't have a particular computer in mind or browser, or language," said Berners-Lee, responding to a question about the fugitive US whistle-blower Edward Snowden, who this month revealed that the US and UK were engaged in industrial-scale spying on web traffic.

"When you make something universal... it can be used for good things or nasty things... we just have to make sure it's not undercut by any large companies or governments trying to use it and get total control," he added.

The five recipients of the prize were Berners-Lee, Robert Kahn, Vint Cerf and Louis Pouzin, while Marc Andreesen, the founder of browser pioneer Netscape and co-author of Mosaic, the first graphical web browser, did not attend.

While Berners-Lee invented the HTML language that enables people to "surf" the internet by clicking on hyperlinks to open new pages, Kahn and Cerf were responsible for designing TCP/IP, the transmission control protocol and internet protocol that dictate how the internet routes traffic.

French engineer Pouzin designed an early packet communications network called Cyclades, which influenced later work that became the internet.

"The internet and the world wide web have brought the world and its people together in ways we could not have imagined 60, or even 30, years ago. And so, I have great pleasure in giving my name to this prize," said the Queen at the ceremony.