The World Wide Web Foundation, also known as the Web Foundation, was a US-based international nonprofit organization advocating for a free and open web for everyone. It was cofounded by

Tim Berners-Lee Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee (born 8 June 1955), also known as TimBL, is an English computer scientist best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web, the HTML markup language, the URL system, and HTTP. He is a professorial research fellow a ...

, the inventor of the

World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW or simply the Web) is an information system that enables Content (media), content sharing over the Internet through user-friendly ways meant to appeal to users beyond Information technology, IT specialists and hobbyis ...

, and Rosemary Leith. Announced in September 2008 in

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

, the Web Foundation launched operations in November 2009 at the

Internet Governance Forum The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) is a multistakeholder governance group for policy dialogue on issues of Internet governance. It brings together all stakeholders in the Internet governance debate, whether they represent governments, the pri ...

. The Web Foundation aims to expand global internet access and ensure the web is a safe, empowering platform for everyone to use freely and beneficially. One of its former board members was

Gordon Brown James Gordon Brown (born 20 February 1951) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 to 2010. Previously, he was Chancellor of the Ex ...

, former

prime minister of the United Kingdom The prime minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government of the United Kingdom. The prime minister Advice (constitutional law), advises the Monarchy of the United Kingdom, sovereign on the exercise of much of the Royal prerogative ...

. On 27th September 2024, Tim Berners-Lee announced that the World Wide Web Foundation was shutting down, which was also announced on their home page.

Mission

The Web Foundation's mission was to advance the open web as a public good and a basic right. It seeks to achieve digital equality; a world where everyone has the same rights and opportunities online. In an open letter published in March 2018, Web Foundation founder Berners-Lee called for action to connect the 50% of the world still not online and to ensure they find a web worth connecting to. In 2019, Web Foundation launched the initiative Contract for the Web to attempt to address issues of political manipulation, fake news, privacy violations, and other malign forces on the internet.

Organization

Headquartered in

, the Web Foundation works across 70 countries, including work through partner organizations. Its team of around 30 employees works from three main hubs in

Jakarta Jakarta (; , Betawi language, Betawi: ''Jakartè''), officially the Special Capital Region of Jakarta (; ''DKI Jakarta'') and formerly known as Batavia, Dutch East Indies, Batavia until 1949, is the capital and largest city of Indonesia and ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

and Washington, D.C. It was also the host organization for the Alliance for Affordable Internet, a global coalition of organizations working to reduce the costs of

broadband In telecommunications, broadband or high speed is the wide-bandwidth (signal processing), bandwidth data transmission that exploits signals at a wide spread of frequencies or several different simultaneous frequencies, and is used in fast Inter ...

and increase access to the internet.

Research

The Web Foundation produces a number of research products including the Open Data Barometer, the Affordability Report, the Web Index and other studies and reports.

Campaigning

In November 2018, the Web Foundation launched the #ForTheWeb campaign, unveiled by founder Berners-Lee at the

Web Summit Web Summit is an annual technology convention (meeting), conference held in Lisbon, Portugal. Founded in 2009 by Paddy Cosgrave, Web Summit was held in Dublin, Ireland until 2016, when it moved to Lisbon. The conference's topics center on intern ...

tech conference in Lisbon, Portugal. The campaign calls on governments, companies and citizens to commit to defending a free and open web by signing up to a Contract for the Web. The Contract for the Web was published as a set of initial high level principles that was built into a full contract published 25 November 2019. These principles received backing from governments including Germany and France, companies such as Google, Facebook and

Cloudflare Cloudflare, Inc., is an American company that provides content delivery network services, cybersecurity, DDoS mitigation, wide area network services, reverse proxies, Domain Name Service, ICANN-accredited domain registration, and other se ...

, as well as a number of civil society organizations.

References

External links