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Building a Contract for the Web — Next Steps

Web Foundation · January 30, 2019

Late last year, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, called on people all around the world to join forces in an unprecedented effort to build a new Contract for the Web. In the huge response, we’ve seen how hungry people are to find solutions to the digital challenges we face. To date, we’ve had over 200 partners from a variety of civil society organisations, companies and governments sign up to add their voices to the process — along with thousands of individual citizens.

The challenge

In recent months, the Web Foundation, along with partners from AnchorFree, Google, The New NowChange.org, CIPESA and the governments of France and Germany, has developed a process to involve the entire web community in turning the contract’s founding principles into a full Contract for the Web — an ambitious roadmap that will lay out specific commitments for governments, companies and individuals to build a better web.

We know that we’re at a critical moment to catalyse action — and that’s why we want to build a complete Contract for the Web in around six months.

To start building the full contract, Working Groups are coming together to focus on individual principles and build these into specific commitments. These are the responsibilities that governments, companies and individuals will be committing to uphold.

Back the Contract for the Web

If you’re interested in being involved, please sign up your organisation to support the contract, or email us at contract@webfoundation.org.

You can also sign up as an individual to show your support and to let us know why you think we need a contract. We’ll be in touch with ways you can add your voice and you’ll also be one of the first people invited to read and comment on the final contract.

We want the Contract for the Web to be a document that guides a web that works for everyone, everywhere, and that means that we need as many different kinds of people engaged in the process as possible.

Growing the Contract for the Web from a call to action to real commitments from governments, companies, and citizens across the globe will require an extraordinary effort, and we are excited by the change we can achieve with your help.


 

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  1. Ronald Lee Murray

    April 11, 2019

    I think that this a wonderful Idea.my comment is a Question, How and who is going to enforce this contract? With that said what are the penalties going to be for someone who doesn't uphold the contract?

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    1. Kenneth Matthews

      January 21, 2021

      With the most recent censorship by AWS, APPLE and GOOGLE, it became very clear the world needs option to the current monopoly.

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