Two initiatives to create a extra open internet, the place customers are answerable for their very own digital identities and knowledge, could also be coming collectively. At SXSW 2025, entrepreneur Frank McCourt, whose Undertaking Liberty is creating open web infrastructure (and is throwing its hat within the ring as a possible purchaser for TikTok), introduced that his group has been in discussions with web pioneer Tim Berners-Lee about an integration with Strong, his open supply mission aimed toward giving individuals management over their very own knowledge.
In a panel at SXSW, McCourt shared that his workforce had “talked to Tim Berners-Lee about Strong,” including that “Undertaking Liberty is appropriate with Strong.”
Although he didn’t announce an official partnership, McCourt recommended that discussions have been underway on a future collaboration.
“We’re debating, or speaking, proper now about tips on how to incorporate that — him and Strong, his Strong Pods — into the mission,” McCourt teased.
Berners-Lee, generally known as the daddy of the World Extensive Net, introduced in 2018 he had been working with a small workforce on the Massachusetts Institute of Know-how to develop Strong. He had additionally tapped British engineer John Bruce to go up Inrupt, a startup constructed on prime of the open supply mission.
Inrupt has gone on to launch a privateness platform aimed toward enterprises, the place individuals management their knowledge in on-line storage entities referred to as Private On-line Knowledge Shops, or Pods for brief.
With related missions in thoughts, Berners-Lee has been supportive of Undertaking Liberty’s efforts. He even backed its TikTok bid, saying: “This mission has my assist. The online I invented was to offer energy and worth to people, which they don’t have for the time being.”
Nonetheless, there has not been a proper collaboration between Strong and Inrupt and Undertaking Liberty, the latter of which is concentrated on the event of Decentralized Social Networking Protocol (DSNP).
That protocol right now is being adopted by a handful of apps and different tasks, together with MeWe; Soar.com (based by Ancestry.com’s Paul Allen to construct apps by a studio mannequin); and the permissionless blockchain Frequency (developed by Undertaking Liberty Labs).
Undertaking Liberty additionally lately introduced a partnership with Free Our Feeds, an effort centered on defending the AT Protocol, which powers Bluesky’s social community.
