CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Timothy Berners-Lee, the British computer scientist known as the inventor of the World Wide Web, worries that Australian plans to make digital giants pay for journalism could set a precedent that renders the Internet as we know it unworkable. It’s a question that divides proponents and critics of the proposed Australian law: does it effectively make Google and Facebook “pay for clicks?” Google says it does. Berners-Lee shared his concerns in a submission to an Australian Senate committee last month. Google’s regional managing director Melanie Silva told the same committee she fears that the code “requires payments simply for links and snippets.”
