Web inventor calls for an online bill of rights

A computer used by British scientist Tim Berners-Lee to devise the World Wide Web has gone on display at the Science Museum in London.

To celebrate the web's 25th anniversary, the NeXT cube computer will go on display in the 'Making the Modern World gallery' at the museum.

Baroness Martha Lane Fox, who created a charity wanting to make the UK the most digitally skilled nation, attended an event yesterday celebrating the computer going on display in London.

On March 12 1989, Sir Tim wrote a paper called "Information Management: A Proposal" which aimed for a "universal linked information system" and sent it to his fellow colleagues.

Mike Sendall, Sir Tim's boss, said the paper was "vague but very exciting."

An online "Magna Carta" is needed to protect and enshrine the independence of the world wide web, its inventor has said.

Marking 25 years since he invented the medium, Sir Tim Berners-Lee told The Guardian: "We need a global constitution - a bill of rights."

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"Unless we have an open, neutral internet we can rely on without worrying about what's happening at the back door, we can't have open government, good democracy, good healthcare, connected communities and diversity of culture," he said.

"It's not naive to think we can have that, but it is naive to think we can just sit back and get it."