When the Web Was New

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A group of prospective members of the consortium's task force on security, privacy, and authentication has already met, concerned about devising protocols for programs that deal with securing commerce, such as online catalog shopping and orders for journal subscriptions over the Web.

The group also wants to develop standards related to software techniques for authenticating the identities of both buyer and seller. The prevent credit-card fraud and other forms of theft, the server should give verifying information about individuals, explains Berners-Lee. Information on possible underlying protocols isn't available yet.

Another team will be charged with creating protocols for software to help people search for specific topics in Web pages. Standards are needed for programs such as several under development that, according to Suzana Lisanti, campus-wide information systems facilitator at MIT, generate and update daily for each Web page a customized index of subjects addressed. The index would function as a kind of electronic headline and could contain key words designed to help a person decide whether to read particular pages.

As W3C's technical work gets under way, Berners-Lee says one of his most important tasks will be to balance the competing visions of its corporate members, each of whom has a financial stake -- as a software developer or information provider -- in the shape of the eventual Web standards.

For example, Mosaic Communications, a California firm that sells an enhanced version of the original Mosaic program, stands to gain a competitive advantage over other consortium members if the new protocols incorporate some of the company's software innovations, while other members will be just as eager to see their ideas used.

 But Berners-Lee says his experience at CERN in editing the original Web specifications has taught him to be optimistic that such conflicts can be overcome simply through directed discussion. The members will resolve their differences because, he says, everyone stands to gain from the system's "overriding, essential nature" -- that every Web document is available to every user.