Definition: WBI

(WeB Intermediaries) A technology from IBM that provides a framework for intermediate processing between the user's browser and the Web server. WBI provides a middleware standard that can be used for password and privacy management, for transcoding from one format to another, for filtering out content and myriad other functions on the Web. Developed in the mid-1990s as a way to maintain a history of a user's Web browsing, it was first named "Memory Browser." It evolved into a programmable HTTP proxy that was named "Personal Web Agent" and then eventually WBI, also pronounced "Webby."