World Wide Web Consortium

Logo since 2025

Abbreviation| W3C
Formation| 1 October 1994; 31 years ago (1994-10-01)
Founder| Tim Berners-Lee
Type| Standards organization
Purpose| Develop protocols and guidelines for the Web
Headquarters| Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
Location|

* 4 offices

* Main Office: MIT/CSAIL, US
* European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (fr), France
* Keio University/SFC, Japan
* Beihang University, China[1]

Coordinates|  [ ⚑ ] : 42°21′43″N 71°05′26″W﻿ / ﻿42.36194°N 71.09056°W﻿ / 42.36194; -71.09056

Region served

| Worldwide

Membership

| 331 member organizations[2]

CEO

| Seth Dobbs

Staff

| 53[3]
Website| {{{1}}}

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. Founded in 1994 by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations that maintain full-time staff working together in the development of technical standards for the World Wide Web. As of March 2026,[update] W3C has 331 members.[2] The organization has been led by CEO Seth Dobbs since October 2023.[4] W3C also engages in education and outreach, develops software and serves as an open forum for discussion about the Web.

## Contents

* 1 History
* 2 Specification maturation
* 2.1 Working draft (WD)
* 2.2 Candidate recommendation (CR)
* 2.3 Proposed recommendation (PR)
* 2.4 W3C recommendation (REC)
* 2.5 Later revisions
* 2.6 Certification
* 3 Administration
* 4 Membership
* 5 Criticism
* 6 Standards
* 6.1 Java packages
* 7 See also
* 8 References
* 9 External links

## History

See also: History of the World Wide Web

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was founded in 1994 by Tim Berners-Lee after he left the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in October 1994.[5] It was founded at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Laboratory for Computer Science with support from the European Commission, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which had pioneered the ARPANET, the most direct predecessor to the modern Internet.[6] It was located in Technology Square until 2004, when it moved, with the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, to the Stata Center.[7]

The organization tries to foster compatibility and agreement among industry members in the adoption of new standards defined by the W3C. Incompatible versions of HTML are offered by different vendors, causing inconsistency in how web pages are displayed. The consortium tries to get all those vendors to implement a set of core principles and components that are chosen by the consortium.

It was originally intended that CERN host the European branch of W3C; however, CERN wished to focus on particle physics, not information technology. In April 1995, the French Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation became the European host of W3C, with Keio University Research Institute at SFC becoming the Asian host in September 1996.[8] Starting in 1997, W3C created regional offices around the world. As of September 2009, it had eighteen World Offices covering Australia, the Benelux countries (Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg), Brazil, China, Finland, Germany, Austria, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, South Korea, Morocco, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, and, as of 2016, the United Kingdom and Ireland.[9]

In 2010, Jeffrey M. Jaffe was named CEO of W3C. He continued in that position until 2022.[10][11]

In October 2012, W3C convened a community of major web players and publishers to establish a MediaWiki wiki that seeks to document open web standards called the WebPlatform and WebPlatform Docs.

In January 2013, Beihang University became the Chinese host.[12]

In 2022 the W3C WebFonts Working Group won an Emmy Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for standardizing font technology for custom downloadable fonts and typography for web and TV devices.[13]

On 1 January 2023, it reformed as a public-interest 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.[14][15] In October 2023, Seth Dobbs was named as the organization's chief executive officer.[4]

W3C logo prior to October 2025

In October 2025, the W3C unveiled a new logo, signaling positive changes and updated its tagline to "making the web work — for everyone". This reflects its evolution into a nonprofit organization and continued focus on global accessibility, collaboration, innovation, privacy, security and the future of web standards. [16]

## Specification maturation

W3C develops technical specifications for HTML5, CSS, SVG, WOFF, the Semantic Web Stack, XML, and other technologies.[17] Sometimes, when a specification becomes too large, it is split into independent modules that can mature at their own pace. Subsequent editions of a module or specification are known as levels and are denoted by the first integer in the title (e.g. CSS3 is Level 3). Subsequent revisions on each level are denoted by an integer following a decimal point (for example, CSS2.1 is Revision 1).

The W3C standard formation process is defined within the W3C process document, outlining four maturity levels through which each new standard or recommendation must progress.[18]

###  Working draft (WD)

After enough content has been gathered from 'editor drafts' and discussion, it may be published as a working draft (WD) for review by the community. A WD document is the first form of a standard that is publicly available. Commentary by virtually anyone is accepted, though no promises are made with regard to action on any particular element commented upon.[18]

At this stage, the standard document may have significant differences from its final form. As such, anyone who implements WD standards should be ready to significantly modify their implementations as the standard matures.[18]

###  Candidate recommendation (CR)

A candidate recommendation is a version of a more mature standard than the WD. At this point, the group responsible for the standard is satisfied that the standard meets its goal. The purpose of the CR is to elicit aid from the development community on how implementable the standard is.[18]

The standard document may change further, but significant features are mostly decided at this point. The design of those features can still change due to feedback from implementers.[18]

###  Proposed recommendation (PR)

A proposed recommendation is the version of a standard that has passed the prior two levels. The users of the standard provide input. At this stage, the document is submitted to the W3C Advisory Council for final approval.[18]

While this step is important, it rarely causes any significant changes to a standard as it passes to the next phase.[18]

###  W3C recommendation (REC)

This is the most mature stage of development. At this point, the standard has undergone extensive review and testing, under both theoretical and practical conditions. The standard is now endorsed by the W3C, indicating its readiness for deployment to the public, and encouraging more widespread support among implementers and authors.[18]

Recommendations can sometimes be implemented incorrectly, partially, or not at all, but many standards define two or more levels of conformance that developers must follow if they wish to label their product as W3C-compliant.[18]

### Later revisions

A recommendation may be updated or extended by separately-published, non-technical errata or editor drafts until sufficient substantial edits accumulate for producing a new edition or level of the recommendation. Additionally, the W3C publishes various kinds of informative notes which are to be used as references.[18]

### Certification

Unlike the Internet Society and other international standards bodies, the W3C does not have a certification program. The W3C has decided, for now, that it is not suitable to start such a program, owing to the risk of creating more drawbacks for the community than benefits.[18]

## Administration

In January 2023, after 28 years of being jointly administered by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (located in Stata Center) in the United States, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (fr) (ERCIM; in Sophia Antipolis, France),[19] Keio University (in Japan) and Beihang University (in China), the W3C incorporated as a legal entity, becoming a public-interest not-for-profit organization.[20]

The W3C has a staff team of 70–80 worldwide as of 2015[update].[21] W3C is run by a management team which allocates resources and designs strategy. It also includes an advisory board that supports strategy and legal matters and helps resolve conflicts.[22][23] The majority of standardization work is done by external experts in the W3C's various working groups.[24]

## Membership

The Consortium is governed by its membership. The list of members is available to the public.[2] Members include businesses, nonprofit organizations, universities, governmental entities, and individuals.[25]

Membership requirements are transparent except for one requirement: An application for membership must be reviewed and approved by the W3C. Many guidelines and requirements are stated in detail, but there is no final guideline about the process or standards by which membership might be finally approved or denied.[26]

The cost of membership is given on a sliding scale, depending on the character of the organization applying and the country in which it is located.[27] Countries are categorized by the World Bank's most recent grouping by gross national income per capita.[28]

## Criticism

In 2012 and 2013, the W3C started considering adding DRM-specific Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) to HTML5, which was criticised as being against the openness, interoperability, and vendor neutrality that distinguished websites built using only W3C standards from those requiring proprietary plug-ins like Flash.[29][30][31][32][33] On 18 September 2017, the W3C published the EME specification as a recommendation, leading to the Electronic Frontier Foundation's resignation from W3C.[34][35] As feared by the opponents of EME, as of 2020[update], none of the widely used Content Decryption Modules used with EME are available for licensing without a per-browser licensing fee.[36][37]

## Standards

W3C standards:

* ActivityPub, decentralized social networking protocol
* CSS
* CSS animations
* CSS box model
* CSS Flexible Box Layout
* CSS grid layout
* Data Catalog Vocabulary
* Document Object Model
* Efficient XML Interchange
* Emotion Markup Language
* Encrypted Media Extensions, DRM modules integration standard
* EPUB, an ebook file format
* GRDDL
* HTML, standard web markup language
* JSON-LD, linked data JSON extension
* MathML, mathematical notation markup language
* Micropub, client-server protocol to post & edit content on websites
* Message Transmission Optimization Mechanism (MTOM)
* Web Ontology Language
* PROV[38]
* Resource Description Framework (RDF), family of metadata standards and associated serialization formats
* N-Triples and N-Quads
* RDF Schema
* RDF/XML
* TriG
* Turtle
* SAWSDL
* Semantic Interpretation for Speech Recognition
* Simple Knowledge Organization System
* Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language
* SOAP
* SPARQL
* Speech Recognition Grammar Specification
* Speech Synthesis Markup Language
* State Chart XML
* Scalable Vector Graphics, vector image format
* Timed Text Markup Language
* VoiceXML
* WAI-ARIA
* Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
* WebAssembly, portable binary format and assembly language
* Web Authentication
* WebDriver, a platform based on language-neutral wire protocol to remotely instruct the behavior of web browsers[39]
* Webmention, protocol for websites to notify other websites
* Web of Things
* Web Open Font Format
* WebRTC, real-time communication standard
* Web Services Description Language
* Web Share API
* WebSub
* WebVTT
* WebXR Device API[40]
* WS-Addressing
* XHTML
* XHTML+RDFa
* XHTML+Voice
* XML and related specifications
* XForms
* XML Encryption
* XML Events
* XML Information Set
* XML Namespaces
* XML Schema
* XPath
* XML Signature
* XQuery
* XSL Formatting Objects
* XSLT
* XTiger[41][42]

Obsoleted:

* P3P

### Java packages

The `org.w3c.dom` standard library packages in the Java programming language provide interfaces for the Document Object Model (DOM).

The `org.xml.sax` standard library packages provide interfaces for the Simple API for XML (SAX).

## See also

* Browser wars
* History of the Internet
* History of the World Wide Web
* History of web browsers
* List of AMP packages
* List of web browsers
* Server (computing)
* Application server
* Comparison of web server software
* HTTP server (core part of a web server program that serves HTTP requests)
* HTTP compression
* Web application
* Open source web application
* Protocol Wars
* Variant object
* Virtual hosting
* Web server
* Web standards
* Web Standards Project
* Web hosting service
* Web container
* Web proxy
* Web service

## References

1. ↑ "W3C Invites Chinese Web Developers, Industry, Academia to Assume Greater Role in Global Web Innovation". W3C. 2013-01-20. http://www.w3.org/2013/01/china-host.html.en.
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "Current Members & Testimonials" (in en). World Wide Web Consortium. https://www.w3.org/membership/list/.
3. ↑ "Staff" (in en). https://www.w3.org/staff/.
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 "World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) welcomes Seth Dobbs as new Chief Executive Officer" (in en). 2023-10-02. https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2023/w3c-welcomes-seth-dobbs-as-new-ceo/.
5. ↑ R, Valsala (1 July 2022). "Can we imagine life without the World Wide Web?". Deccan Herald. https://www.deccanherald.com/specials/can-we-imagine-life-without-the-world-wide-web-1123051.html.
6. ↑ "About us". https://www.w3.org/Consortium/.
7. ↑ Michael Blanding, "The Past and Future of Kendall Square", MIT Technology Review August 18, 2015.
8. ↑ "Press release: Keio University joins the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science and INRIA in Hosting the International World Wide Web Consortium". 9 September 1996. https://www.w3.org/Press/Keio-PR.html.
9. ↑ Jacobs, Ian (June 2009). "W3C Offices". http://www.w3.org/Consortium/org#offices.
10. ↑ "Dr. Jeffrey Jaffe Named W3C CEO" (in en). 2010-03-08. https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2010/ceo/.
11. ↑ "Dr. Jeffrey Jaffe, W3C CEO". https://www.w3.org/People/Jeff/Overview.html.
12. ↑ "Beihang University Becomes Newest Institution to Host W3C". 20 January 2013. https://www.w3.org/2013/01/china-host.html.en.
13. ↑ Pedersen, Erik, "Technology & Engineering Emmys Winners Unveiled". Deadline. April 25, 2022.
14. ↑ "W3C re-launched as a public-interest non-profit organization" (in en). 2023-01-31. https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2023/w3c-le-launched/.
15. ↑ Gordon, Rachel (2023-02-02). "World Wide Web Consortium is now a public-interest nonprofit organization" (in en). https://news.mit.edu/2023/world-wide-web-consortium-is-now-public-interest-nonprofit-organization-0202.
16. ↑ "The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) adopts a new logo to signal positive changes". World Wide Web Consortium. https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2025/new-logo/.
17. ↑ "Standards". World Wide Web Consortium. https://www.w3.org/standards/.
18. ↑ 18.00 18.01 18.02 18.03 18.04 18.05 18.06 18.07 18.08 18.09 18.10 "Development Process". W3C. 2005-04-12. http://www.w3.org/2005/10/Process-20051014/tr.html#rec-advance.
19. ↑ Kunz, Peter (2023-09-04). "ERCIM and W3C". ERCIM. https://www.ercim.eu/about/ercim-and-w3c.
20. ↑ "Facts about W3C". W3C. https://www.w3.org/Consortium/facts.
21. ↑ "W3C people list". W3C. http://www.w3.org/People/all.
22. ↑ Jackson, Joab (2010-03-08). "W3C pulls former Novell CTO for CEO spot". Itworld.com. http://www.itworld.com/business/99440/w3c-pulls-former-novell-cto-ceo-spot.
23. ↑ "The World Wide Web Consortium: Building a Better Internet". Mays Digital. https://www.maysdigital.co.uk/w3c/.
24. ↑ "Working Groups". W3C. https://www.w3.org/groups/wg/.
25. ↑ "Membership FAQ". 2010. http://www.w3.org/Consortium/membership-faq.
26. ↑ Jacobs, Ian (2008). "Join W3C". http://www.w3.org/Consortium/join.
27. ↑ W3C Membership Fee Calculator
28. ↑ "World Bank Country Classification". Web.worldbank.org. http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/DATASTATISTICS/0,,contentMDK:20420458~menuPK:64133156~pagePK:64133150~piPK:64133175~theSitePK:239419,00.html.
29. ↑ Cory Doctorow (2013-03-12). "What I wish Tim Berners-Lee understood about DRM". Technology blog at guardian.co.uk. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2013/mar/12/tim-berners-lee-drm-cory-doctorow.
30. ↑ Glyn Moody (2013-02-13). "BBC Attacks the Open Web, GNU/Linux in Danger". Open Enterprise blog at ComputerworldUK.com. http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2013/02/bbc-attacks-the-open-web-gnulinux-in-danger/index.htm.
31. ↑ Scott Gilbertson (2013-02-12). "DRM for the Web? Say It Ain't So". Webmonkey. Condé Nast. http://www.webmonkey.com/2013/02/drm-for-the-web-say-it-aint-so/.
32. ↑ "Tell W3C: We don't want the Hollyweb". Defective by Design. Free Software Foundation. March 2013. http://www.defectivebydesign.org/no-drm-in-html5.
33. ↑ Danny O'Brien (October 2013). "Lowering Your Standards: DRM and the Future of the W3C". Electronic Frontier Foundation. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/10/lowering-your-standards.
34. ↑ Peter Bright (2017-09-18). "HTML5 DRM finally makes it as an official W3C Recommendation". Ars Technica. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/09/drm-for-html5-published-as-a-w3c-recommendation-after-58-4-approval/.
35. ↑ Cory Doctorow (2017-09-18). "An open letter to the W3C Director, CEO, team and membership". Blog at Electronic Frontier Foundation. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/09/open-letter-w3c-director-ceo-team-and-membership.
36. ↑ "Three years after the W3C approved a DRM standard, it's no longer possible to make a functional indie browser" (in en-US). 2020-01-08. https://boingboing.net/2020/01/08/rip-open-web-platform.html.
37. ↑ Doctorow, Cory (3 April 2019). "After years of insisting that DRM in HTML wouldn't block open source implementations, Google says it won't support open source implementations" (in en-US). https://boingboing.net/2019/04/03/i-hate-being-right-2.html.
38. ↑ Groth, Paul; Moreau, Luc (April 30, 2013). "PROV-Overview: An Overview of the PROV Family of Documents". https://www.w3.org/TR/2013/NOTE-prov-overview-20130430/.
39. ↑ Simon Stewart, (Apple); David Burns, (BrowserStack) (June 24, 2022). "WebDriver". https://www.w3.org/TR/webdriver2/.
40. ↑ "WebXR Device API — W3C Candidate Recommendation Snapshot". 2022-03-31. https://immersive-web.github.io/webxr/. Retrieved 2023-05-23.
41. ↑ Sire, Stéphane; Vanoirbeek, Christine; Quint, Vincent; Roisin, Cécile (2010). "Authoring XML all the time, everywhere and by everyone". XML Prague 2010. Prague: Center of Excellence - Institute for Theoretical Computer Science. http://wam.inrialpes.fr/publications/2010/XMLPrague10.pdf.
42. ↑ Kia, Émilien; Quint, Vincent; Vatton, Irène (December 15, 2009). "XTiger language specification". https://www.w3.org/Amaya/Templates/XTiger-spec.html.

## External links

* About the World Wide Web Consortium
* W3C Technical Reports and Publications
* W3C Process Document
* W3C History
* How to read W3C specs

* v
* t
* e

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

Products and
standards|

| Recommendations|

* ActivityPub
* ARIA
* Canonical XML
* CDF
* CSS
* DOM
* Geolocation API
* HTML (HTML5)
* ITS
* JSON-LD
* Linked Data Notifications
* MathML
* Micropub
* OWL
* PLS
* RDF
* RDF Schema
* SISR
* SKOS
* SMIL
* SOAP
* SRGS
* SRI
* SSML
* SVG
* SCXML
* SHACL
* SPARQL
* Timed text
* VoiceXML
* Web storage
* WSDL
* Webmention
* WebSub
* XForms
* XHTML
* XHTML+RDFa
* XInclude
* XLink
* XML
* XML Base
* XML Encryption
* XML Events
* XML Information Set
* XML namespace
* XML Schema
* XML Signature
* XOP
* XPath
* XPath 2.0
* XPointer
* XProc
* XQuery
* XSL
* XSL-FO
* XSLT (elements)

|

Notes|

* IndieAuth
* JF2
* Post Type Discovery
* XAdES
* XHTML+SMIL
* XUP

Working drafts|

* CCXML
* CURIE
* EME
* InkML
* MSE
* RIF
* SMIL Timesheets
* sXBL
* XFDL
* XFrames
* XBL
* XMLHttpRequest

Guidelines|

* Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

Initiative|

* Multimodal Interaction Activity (MMI)
* Markup Validation Service
* Web Accessibility Initiative
* WebPlatform

Deprecated|

* C-HTML
* HDML
* JSSS
* PGML
* VML
* XHTML+MathML+SVG

Obsoleted|

* P3P

Organizations|

* Advisory Committee (AC)
* World Wide Web Foundation

Elected groups|

* Advisory Board (AB)

Working groups|

* CSS
* Geolocation
* Social Web
* SVG
* Web Hypertext Application Technology (WHATWG)
* Web Platform

Community groups|

* Web Incubator Community Group (WICG)

Closed groups|

* Device Description (DDWG)
* HTML

Software|

* CERN httpd
* Libwww

Browsers|

* Line Mode (1990–)
* Arena (1993–98)
* Agora (1994–97)
* Argo (1994–97)
* Amaya (browser/editor, 1996–2012)

Conferences|

* International World Wide Web Conference (IW3C)
* Steering Committee (IW3C2)
* First conference ("WWW1", 1994)

* v
* t
* e

Free and open-source software

General|

* Alternative terms for free software
* Comparison of open-source and closed-source software
* Comparison of source-code-hosting facilities
* Free software
* Free software project directories
* Gratis versus libre
* Long-term support
* Open-source software
* Open-source software development
* Outline

Software
packages|

* Audio
* Bioinformatics
* Codecs
* Collaboration
* Configuration management
* Device drivers
* Graphics
* Wireless
* Geophysics
* Health
* Mathematics
* Operating systems
* Programming languages
* Routing
* Statistics
* Television
* Video games
* Web applications
* Content management systems
* E-commerce
* Word processors
* Android apps
* iOS apps
* Commercial
* Trademarked
* Formerly proprietary

Community|

* Free software movement
* History
* Open-source-software movement
* Organizations
* Events

Licenses|

* AFL
* Apache
* APSL
* Artistic
* Beerware
* Boost
* BSD
* CC0
* CDDL
* EPL
* Free Software Foundation
* GNU GPL
* GNU LGPL
* ISC
* MIT
* MPL
* Ms-PL/RL
* Python
* Python Software Foundation License
* Sleepycat
* Unlicense
* WTFPL
* zlib

| Types and
standards|

* Comparison of free and open-source software licenses
* Contributor License Agreement
* Copyleft
* Debian Free Software Guidelines
* Definition of Free Cultural Works
* Free license
* The Free Software Definition
* The Open Source Definition
* Open-source license
* Permissive software license
* Public domain
* Viral license

|

Challenges|

* Digital rights management
* Firmware security
* Hardware restrictions
* License proliferation
* Mozilla software rebranding
* Proprietary device drivers
* Proprietary firmware
* Proprietary software
* SCO/Linux controversies
* Secure boot
* Software patents
* Software security
* Trusted Computing

Related topics|

* Forking
* GNU Manifesto
* Microsoft Open Specification Promise
* Open-core model
* Open-source hardware
* Shared Source Initiative
* Source-available software
* The Cathedral and the Bazaar
* Revolution OS

*   * Category
* Commons
* WikiProject
* Book

Template:Website builders

* v
* t
* e

Website management

Concepts|

* Overselling
* Web document
* Web content
* Web content lifecycle
* Web hosting service
* Web server
* Webmaster
* Website governance

Web hosting control panels (comparison)|

* AlternC
* cPanel
* DirectAdmin
* Domain Technologie Control
* GNUPanel
* i-MSCP
* InterWorx
* ISPConfig
* Kloxo
* Plesk
* Usermin
* Webmin

Top-level domain registries|

* Afilias
* CentralNic
* CIRA
* Donuts
* Neustar
* OVH
* Public Interest Registry
* Uniregistry
* Verisign

Domain name managers and registrars|

* AusRegistry
* CZ.NIC
* CNNIC
* DENIC
* DNS Belgium
* Domainz
* DreamHost
* Dynadot
* Enom
* Epik
* Gandi
* GoDaddy
* Hover
* Infomaniak
* IPM
* Japan Registry Services
* Jimdo
* Melbourne IT
* Museum Domain Management Association
* Name.com
* Namecheap
* Network Solutions
* Net4
* NIC México
* Register.com
* Tucows
* Uniregistry
* UK2
* Web.com
* Wix.com

Web content management system|

* Document management system
* Wiki software
* Blog software

0.00

(0 votes)

Original source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World Wide Web Consortium. Read more

|

Retrieved from "https://handwiki.org/wiki/index.php?title=Organization:World_Wide_Web_Consortium&oldid=4350074"
*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template