1. Some of the web's most successful inhabitants, the larger social networks in particular (Facebook for example), are undermining some of the founding principles of the web by virtue of their 'silo storage' approach to data by not letting users port contacts, photos, and the like to their personal computers or other networks (though this is something Facebook have begun changing slowly in recent times). This creates so-called 'walled gardens' or 'closed worlds', which represents a step towards the fragmentation of the internet - something which, in the long term, would be very unwelcome for creativity and innovation.

2. Secondly, with these particular aforementioned sites, there is the danger that their staggering success in recent times, gives rise to a further innovation and competition-stifling level of domination (monopoly). This undermines principles of openness, and furthers the creation of such closed worlds, with Berners-Lee citing particular smart-phone apps for services as an example of an attempt to lock users into these specific limited spaces, rather than building web native ones which sit amongst all the rest of what the web has to offer. Ultimately, he argues, the web should be equally open whether accessed on a laptop or a smart-phone - despite the technical challenges that this might currently present.

3. Finally, Berners-Lee revisits the question of net neutrality which is currently a hot topic with Ed Vaizey's (UK gov't communications minister) plans to relax the rules on traffic management by UK ISP's to allow the channelling of bandwidth towards some sites at the expense of others (all bytes will no longer be created equal...)

It is interesting that Berners-Lee feels these fundamental principles are sufficiently under threat by the actions and policies of a few key companies (Apple, Facebook, LinkedIn etc) that he feels prompted to speak out. However, if one looks at the three aspects which are worrying him, there is one common thread - namely that these trends represent great news for the corporate giants in question. In other words, the developments which so worry Sir Tim might be bad news for principles of creativity, openness and innovation - but not necessarily a worrying prospect for the now-established giants seeking to maintain their market domination and translate this into stratospheric profits.

I suppose everything Berners-Lee highlights can actually be distilled into one key point: that is that, as the web 'matures' and becomes a hugely lucrative environment for big business (which is the case more so than ever), there is a danger that such powerful vested interests will assume an excessive role in developing the internet in a way which suits them - and not perhaps in the direction that original creators of the web, or indeed many users, would ideally wish to see it go.

The key thing to remember is at once rather obvious - too obvious perhaps, in that it does sometimes get forgotten: the web is not a finished and stable format and medium with already-known inherent limits to what it can and can't be used for. We're not talking about a technological medium that has the complexity of a toaster or a television for example (which reached, pretty quickly, the point at which later toasters and televisions would always fairly closely resemble eachother).

Instead, even in the time of so-called web 2.0, it continues to be extremely difficult to say how the internet will function and be used in a decade's time. There is currently, seemingly limitless room to expand and develop the uses to which this technology can be put, and so it is in this context that we should hear the comments of Tim Berners-Lee - remembering that we cannot take for granted that the web will develop down the most desirable route if such issues are left solely in the jurisdiction of a few established corporate giants that right now command the most clout (whoever they happen to be).

Or maybe it was the number of recent Facebook, Google or Twitter leaks and bugs which compromised the privacy of their users (see Techcrunch for a great post on this). Regardless of what it was I decided to have a look for ways in which I can continue to use the net - but have a little more control over my information. That's where Yauba comes in...

Yauba offers users an alternative to Google, Yahoo or any of the other majority search engines, in that it does not store user data, track search records or monitor patterns to deliver targeted ads. This in fact is the very point - it is the world's first privacy-safe real time search engine. So far so good - the concept works for me, but I can't help a few little things niggling away at the back of my mind.

The first is that, since Yauba is still in early beta mode, it is not quite yet massively useful. Not to say that is useless, just that i found it tricky to locate many sites via search that Google instantly delivers. But in time this should improve and arguably, even if it can never match Google's powerful algorithms, Yauba should be able to take users off its rivals as long as it can get close to this level of results (I for one would happily accept the trade-off for the sake of my privacy).

The other problem however is a bit more inherent in the very concept of Yauba. Since it gathers no data the whole endeavour sadly lacks financial viability. After all, search engines are very expensive to run, and if you have no product (i.e. Google's mass of data) then it's hard to raise funds to operate. In addition services like Google trends - which admittedly are very useful - are always going to be unmatched by engines such as Yauba.

Finally one hopes that the folk at Yauba do have a policy whereby certain exceptional search terms do trigger the surveillance trackers - i'm talking about terms connected to illegal activities whatever they may be.

All in all though, Yauba is a refreshing concept and one that I truly hope goes on to establish itself on the web 2.0 landscape. One thing is for sure - the people behind it are not wrong to figure that there is a demand out there for online services that buck the trend and choose not to monitor their users every thought and move.

Dejan Levi

How many times have we heard someone speculate about a return to the world of fifteen years ago in which mobile phones were entirely unused and unnecessary? In only one decade such technology has become so deeply entrenched in modern life that such a return to a previous state seems about as possible as reversing the movement of tectonic plates or the erosion of mountains.

There is no doubt that an Orwellian dystopia becomes all the more possible with each passing year's worth of technological development - and while we argue whether such and such technologies encroach our privacy or not, it might be better to consider whether or not traditional notions of privacy have long since already become obsolete...

What kind of privacy can we reasonably expect in living in a modern metrolpolis (as most of us in the world now do), and how can we guard against a slow enslavement to technologies and systems that we as individuals do not own?

Consider a fairly typical day for many Londoners for example:

1. Oyster cards give us cheaper and quicker access to the city's transport systems (but in return enable for us to be tracked at every stage - in the case of personal oyster cards as are used by all student and monthly/weekly users).

2. CCTV covers pretty much every public space and we are regularly tracked by as many as a few hundred cameras over the course of a single day. Even in seemingly deserted spaces we are rarely alone in the way that we imagine - in short privacy in an urban public space has long since been technically unattainable.

3. Our bank cards log the details of all our economic transactions - all purchases, exchanges and the times, date and places of such. With this alone our movements and actions can be pretty easily pieced together.

4. We use mobile phones and GPS devices on a daily basis which can be located and tracked anywhere in the world...

The list goes on - and the point is that, though sometimes this information is private (bank statements for example belong to us as individuals and should not be in the public domain), such privacy is nonetheless dependent upon a massively intricate quantity of data remaining entirely secret, and even then certain people will have access to it (bank emplyees, CCTV guards etc etc).

The simple and perhaps sad fact is that every single day of our lives in modern British urban soceity can be pieced together using a vast range of technological and digital means. In return we gain the ability to function effectively in such environments (try going a couple of days without using mobile phones, bank cards, oyster cards etc - pretty impossible if you live in a UK metropolis).

We have little choice but to accept the conditions for living imposed by the modern technological soceity, other than to leave it for some other environment. The question becomes; assuming all our data is always safe, and will never be abused (a pretty big ask) are we willing to accept that even then the privacy enjoyed by previous generations is now largely impossible to guarantee in a modern urban soceity?

For me personally I am happy to relinquish some degree of privacy in return for having a bank account and card for example - I do not feel so strongly about it to handicap myself to such a degree as to not have such an account (I am sure living without one is perfectly possible - but for me the inconvenience would not be worth it).

However, just because our old Western ideals of privacy are being constantly reconfigured and pushed back by new technologies, it is nonetheless important to carefully evaluate each new development individually and guard against ones which threaten to overstep even the now greatly loosened boundaries of individual privacy and freedom.

In short, the privacy of old may no longer be realistic or possible - but it does not mean we must accept being spied upon or controlled either; luckily there is plenty of middle ground, and it is here I would like to think we are...

Dejan Levi