This week saw the launch of the World Wide Web Foundation with a speech by Sir Tim Berners Lee introducing what it will be doing, and what it’s for. The points put forward in the speech seemed centred around three bullets from Berners-Lee’s talk:

• to advance One Web that is free and open,
• to expand the Web’s capability and robustness,
• and to extend the Web’s benefits to all people on the planet.

The Foundation’s strapline is “Humanity Connected”, and seems to be based out of concerns from the way the Web is now.
My first reaction to this was the moderately paradoxical: “Cool! Why?” And a long look at the Foundation’s FAQ‘s have brought out more questions.

The Cool part comes—apart from the support from TBL—from the idea that an organisation bringing together top minds from web, business, public sector and educational spaces to focus on the connectivity of mankind could produce some of the most profound, interesting, and useful research ever entered into. One of the FAQ’s sums this up:

Why did this Foundation emerge from W3C and WSRI and why now?
Those organizations have contributed significantly to the vision of the Web as humanity connected, but still more is required to include more people, in particular in underserved communities. The Foundation seeks to extend the benefits of a Web, improved by further research and technology development to all people.

The “Why?” comes from the mission it will involve. Is this a venture in trying to control the web itself (is that ominous?)? While they’re looking into security and other areas of personal and corporate trouble with the Web, are they also going to be looking at ways to eliminate this themselves, or is this more of a “watchdog”?

As you can see, there are many, many questions raised by this new foundation launch, but as with anything involving the W3C I’m sure there will also be a lot of information coming our way soon!