Sir Tim Berners-Lee has revealed he was the victim of an online scam, according to the Telegraph.
Berners-Lee, who recently celebrated the 20th anniversary of his proposal to create the web, purchased a Christmas present online. The present never arrived and he realised he had been scammed.
"The worst thing that has happened to me was when I tried to buy a Christmas present from a company that looked like a bona fide company on the internet and then actually they were a completely fake company. I think I am yet to get the money back, but it wasn't a lot."
"The moment I called the 0800 number listed on the website, there was a very polite message saying this number is available if you would like to use it, so a little bit of due diligence on my part would have revealed it wasn't what it was set up to be."
Berners-Lee said that steps need to be taken towards fighting this breed of online crime with just as much force as fighting other crimes.
He stressed the importance of the authorities working together to stop these, as well as the internet user being a proactive consumer and checking on companies before giving out any personal information. He also said that new steps need to be taken to protect users from harmful software on the internet.
