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Smartphones now quietly push news based on your recent interests each morning, almost as if they are monitoring your daily life. Social networks map users’ preferences and keep people trapped in endless scrolling. In an era where everything is shared online, personal data is the most rapidly and intensively circulated commodity.
In This Is for Everyone, Tim Berners-Lee revisits the founding philosophy of the World Wide Web — a free and equal sea of information — at a moment when a handful of companies hoard data and monetize our attention in what he calls the “attention economy.”
Berners-Lee invented the web in 1989 while working at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Switzerland. He conceived the web as a way to link information scattered across different networks. By combining hypertext with the internet, he opened a new world, and in 1993 he released his invention to the public without a patent or any conditions. “As the web grew, I realized it couldn’t belong to any one person,” he says. “For the web to succeed, it had to remain free.”
He hoped humanity would use the web’s connective power to usher in an era of creativity and collaboration. In its early days, the decentralized web seemed to fulfill that promise. It sometimes acted as a catalyst for democratic movements and liberation, as seen in the Arab Spring. “Those early years were great because anyone could build a website, and most traffic went to personal sites,” he explains.
But as the web expanded rapidly, his concerns became reality. Today’s innocuous-sounding “cookies” track users’ every move, and algorithms are engineered to maximize clicks and time spent. Under a big-tech–centered structure, personal information has become a commodity that opens advertisers’ wallets. The Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which some 87 million people’s data were used without consent, showed how the web can be turned into a tool that threatens democracy.
Berners-Lee positions himself as a designer intent on correcting the web’s distorted ecosystem and steering the coming AI era onto a better path. He still believes in the message he voiced at the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony — “This is for everyone” — seeing it as both a valid principle and a vision that can be revived.
At the core of his argument is data sovereignty. He argues that changing how personal data is stored and used is key to rescuing the web and improving digital life. The way individuals’ data — from card transactions and medical records to location and online activity logs — is exploited outside their control must be fundamentally rethought. “We should enable people to strengthen themselves through their digital footprints,” he insists.
That idea led to Solid, a system that stores personal data in individual data pods. Under Solid, distributed personal information stays secure and integrated, and companies and services must obtain users’ permission before accessing data. He frames Solid’s primary goals as freeing people from algorithmic manipulation, opening access to new functionalities, and turning digital footprints into sustainable value.
Berners-Lee does not cast technology itself as evil. He sees the core problem with social media as lying in the algorithmic design choices made by engineers and companies. Citing Australia’s move to ban social media use for those under 16, he argues that the crucial question is not simply whether to prohibit, but how we design and deploy the technology.
His stance on AI follows the same logic. He acknowledges AI’s benefits while warning about issues such as training-data copyright and the threat of deepfakes. He calls for global cooperation and governance to rein in AI, stressing that even if entities emerge that are smarter than humans, we must ensure they operate safely under human oversight.
Berners-Lee says now is a moment for a reset. By linking trustworthy data stores with AI, he argues, we can move beyond an era of data exploitation. “We still have time to build machines that serve people rather than make people dependent on machines,” he says. “We still have time to use technology to connect people and protect our rights.” Reporter Son Mi-jung
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