Romano Prodi, newly-installed President of the European Commission, was
expected to receive Microsoft chairman Bill Gates for a private audience in
Brussels.
The meeting, scheduled for yesterday, was disclosed by Save the Web, a European Internet user
movement.
Save the Web points out that Microsoft has never been in the vanguard of
open standards, and that this proprietary view has not helped the Internet
revolution, hence Gates cannot speak on a strategy beneficial to the
European Internet community.
Founded by a group of European individuals determined to preserve and
develop the internet as a medium for unrestricted personal communication and
interaction, Save the Webs founders include Philippe Brawerman, former
president of Cisco Europe, now CEO and co-founder of REEF; Andrew Graham,
acting master of Balliol College, Oxford University; David Philipson
present chairman of the Swedish Industry organisation for Content and
Service Providers and vice president of the European Multimedia Forum.
The mission of Save the Web is to ensure that the highest priority of
Internet law in Europe is to protect individual Internet users’ rights. To
do this, a spokesperson for the organization said that they “intend to
mobilize the growing millions of European Internet users to join the Save
the Weg movement.”
Save The Web urged Prodi to pay at least as much attention to the concerns
of the European Internet community as to the advice of the chairman of
Microsoft.
