The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is a global institution that focuses on creating standards for the World Wide Web. As of March 5, 2023, W3C has 462 members, or organizations, that work together to create Internet standards and put them into fair and ethical practice. The organization makes rules and suggestions to help everyone create a web that is accessible to everyone, internationally, and protects boundaries of privacy and security. Beyond standardization, W3C also engages in educational outreach, and software development, and serves as a platform for web-related discussions.
Three Decades of Web Innovation
On October 1, 2024, the Web Standards Authority will celebrate its 30th anniversary at the annual Technical Plenary and Advisory Committee (TPAC) encounter. The event will celebrate the advancements in web technology over the past thirty years and the global impact of W3C standards as well as focus on future goals and missions. The celebration will boast speeches by important figures and a gala.
TPAC is W3C’s main yearly event that discusses and collaborates on advancing the work of the web governance organization. TPAC brings together W3C members, the board of directors, the advisory board, and the technical architecture group to make progress in the development and standardization of online behavior.
W3C’s Vision for the World Wide Web
The Internet was first created for sharing information and has since become an indispensable part of human life. It has made and is still causing big social changes, giving people access to knowledge, education, commerce, socializing, and entertainment, so the transformation has been mostly positive.
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was conceived as a fortification of the positive impact the Internet could have on humanity. It works to establish a consistent structure for developing the Internet and unite a community to support its growth.
While the Internet has been successful, its very nature of openness and anonymity has also caused problems. Scams and fraud have increased, and personal data is easily available, leading to the unauthorized sale of user information. Misinformation also spreads like a virus, leading to social division and hate.
We must address these consequences and strive to create better standards. The technology we create leaves a mark, so it’s important for us to take responsibility for what we bring into the world. The W3C’s Ethical Web Principles provide a strong basis for improving the ethical integrity of the Internet.
The Internet has had a huge impact and will continue to do so in the future. The Internet should be inclusive and respectful, prioritizing facts over falsehoods, people over profits, and humanity over hate.
As the Ethical Web Principles state, “The web should empower an equitable, informed, and interconnected society.”
The Web is for all humanity.
The Web is designed for the good of its users.
The Web must be safe for its users.
There is one interoperable world-wide Web.
Operational Principles for W3C
In order to fulfill the vision of a fair and ethical worldwide online community, W3C follows these operational principles:
User-first: W3C has users in mind first, and authors second, while publishers, implementers, and paying W3C members come third.
Multi-stakeholder: Developers, content creators, and end users must work together to build the Web. No single person, company, or interest group can be more important or stand before W3C’s work.
Diversity: Including people from all different backgrounds and experiences is vital in today’s society. We must come together in order to make a more just future that includes people from diverse situations, especially those who haven’t had a lot of opportunities.
Thorough Review: One of the consortium’s primary goals is to ensure that the Internet’s technical standards endure a thorough and consistent review. Continuous scrutiny strengthens features like accessibility, internationalization, sustainability, privacy, and security.
Consensus: The web guidelines entity works to establish standards by engaging the community in a principled agreement.
Free to Implement: W3C creates standards using a strict policy in which patents are available for free and copyrights are open to use.
Open Participation: The consortium welcomes feedback from the general public and is open to organizations of all sizes, including self-employed individuals and multinational corporations.
Interoperability: W3C tests specifications using open test sets and real implementation experience, setting standards that ensure different systems can work together.
Incubation: The aim is to keep expanding the Web so that it can be used by more people around the world and cover a wider range of technical topics.
Avoid Centralization: The goal is to decrease the concentration of power in Web architecture, reducing the risk of one point of failure and one point of control.
Collaboration: Improving relationships with Internet and Web standards organizations is significant for the web development standards group. Also, maintaining trusted connections with governments and businesses to offer credible advice remains vital for the consortium.
From CERN to MIT: The Origins and Growth of W3C
Tim Berners-Lee founded W3C in 1994 after leaving CERN, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Laboratory for Computer Science. The organization received significant support from the European Commission and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which had earlier developed ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet. The web governance organization was initially located at Technology Square, but then it moved to the Stata Center with the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in 2004.
The main goal of W3C is to help companies agree on new standards. This effort aims to solve the problem of different vendors offering incompatible versions of HTML which can cause web pages to look inconsistent.
Initially, CERN was intended to host the European branch of this web guidelines entity. CERN focused on particle physics, so in April 1995, the French Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation took over the role. Then, Keio University Research Institute at SFC became the Asian host in September 1996. Since 1997, W3C has expanded globally and set up regional offices in various countries including Australia, Brazil, China, Germany, and India. By September 2009, W3C had eighteen world offices, and the United Kingdom and Ireland joined in 2016.
In 2022, the W3C WebFonts Working Group earned an Emmy Award for their work on standardizing web and TV font technologies. On January 1, 2023, W3C restructured into a non-profit organization dedicated to public interest.
W3C’s Structured Approach to Standards
The Internet is an intricate web of standards that need to work properly because they are everywhere: browsers, blogs, search engines, and other software. That is why it is so important for web services and open architectures to follow recommended programming languages and generally accepted principles set by W3C standards. These standards apply to web design and application, and include but are not limited to the following:
Common Gateway Interface (CGI)
CSS
Document Object Model (DOM)
Extensible HTML (XHTML)
Extensible Markup Language (XML)
Gleaning Resource Descriptions from Dialects of Languages (GRDDL)
HTML
JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data (JSON-LD)
Resource Description Framework (RDF)
Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP)
SPARQL Protocol and RDF Query Language (SPARQL)
Speech Recognition Grammar Specification (SRGS)
Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML)
Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG)
VoiceXML (VXML)
Web Real-Time Communications (WebRTC)
Web Services Description Language (WSDL)
Following W3C standards is simply good common sense. However, they are not officially enforced, and there are no penalties for not conducting them.
How Technical Standards Evolve Through Four Key Phases
The W3C creates technical guidelines for various web technologies, such as HTML5, CSS, SVG, WOFF, XML, and the Semantic Web stack. When a guideline becomes too extensive, it’s split into different parts for separate development. These parts, called levels, are identified by the first number in the title (for example, CSS3 for Level 3), with revisions shown by a decimal number (for example, CSS2.1).
The process for creating W3C standards includes four maturity levels:
Working Draft (WD): The first version is now open for the community to review and provide feedback. Significant changes are expected during this phase.
Candidate Recommendation (CR): Based on substantial community and expert feedback, a more polished version has been created.
Proposed Recommendation (PR): This version has been reviewed by the W3C Advisory Council for final approval.
W3C Recommendation (REC): The tested and final version is ready for widespread use.
Standards can be updated through non-technical corrections or editor drafts until a new edition or level is produced. W3C also releases various types of informative notes for reference.
Lastly, unlike other standards bodies, W3C does not offer a certification program, opting to avoid potential complications that such a program might introduce to the community.
Leadership, Structure, and Membership
As of January 2023, W3C is a non-profit organization run by a team of 70-80 people. CEO Jeffrey Jaffe leads the organization, which is supported by an advisory board and working groups. W3C members include businesses, non-profits, universities, governmental entities, and individuals. To become a member, organizations, and individuals must meet specific criteria for membership approval. Membership fees differ depending on the type of organization and the country of origin, as classified by the World Bank’s income categories.
The Web Consortium and its members, supported by the public and the web community, are focused on transforming various business ecosystems, including e-commerce, media and entertainment, publishing, and others.
From Criticism to Recommendation: Addressing Controversies and Ensuring Web Accessibility
In 2012 and 2013, the W3C was criticized for considering including technology in HTML5 to protect digital content, which some argued compromised the accessibility of the Interwebs. Despite opposition, including the resignation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the technology was published as a recommendation in September 2017 and still required licensing fees for decryption modules as of 2020.
The World Wide Web Consortium remains a pivotal force in web standardization, ensuring the web remains a robust, open, and interoperable platform. Through its meticulous standard formation process, global collaboration, and continuous efforts in education and outreach, W3C upholds the vision of an accessible and unified web for all.
