The World Wide Web Foundation, a non-profit organisation established by Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee "devoted to achieving a world in which all people can use the Web to communicate, collaborate and innovate freely, building bridges across the divides that threaten our shared future," has launched the web index, a country-by-country study of the impact of the web on people's lives.

The index aggregates three measurements, on the connectivity within the country, the actual use of the Web, and the social, economic and political impact of the web. Sweden, which comes in at the top of the Index, has the highest impact rating, despite being 12th on actual usage. The US, which has the highest usage, is second on impact, and fourth on readiness.

Other than the US coming second to Sweden, the only other surprising fact that comes from the data is that Russia is ranked as even worse than Kazahkstan.

The full data – and there is really a lot of it – can be found at the Web Index's website [2], naturally.