The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has warned that property websites increase the gap between rich and poor. Its researchers found that information about postcode districts on things such as schools, crime rates and other amenities was becoming increasingly sophisticated. The foundation said this facility could become a tool for people to select areas where their neighbours were most like themselves which could lead to a segregated society. Roger Burrows, who led the research team from the universities of York and Durham, said: “We already have a digital divide in Britain between those whose internet access makes them information rich and those whose inability to afford computers or fast web connections makes them information poor. It seems only a matter of time before the kind of powerful neighbourhood search sites available in the US start to reinforce the divide between the more and less prosperous parts of the UK.” (Guardian)