Liaisons

Many organizations in addition to W3C develop standards for the Internet or the Web. In order to coordinate the development of the Web, W3C engages in liaisons with numerous organizations after careful consideration of the costs and benefits.

As defined in the W3C Process Document, the term "liaison" is used to refer to coordination of activities with a variety of organizations, through a number of mechanisms ranging from very informal to mutual membership, or even more formal agreements. Liaisons are not meant to substitute for W3C membership.

W3C is a broad community which covers standardization work in W3C Working Groups and incubation work in W3C Community Groups (CGs). Listing a formal liaison with W3C on behalf of a CG on this page is generally discouraged because CG output does not represent the consensus of the W3C Community (of course informal liaison is always encouraged). If an external group outside of W3C would like a Liaison with a CG, they must write up their rationale and be explicit that they understand that the CG work is not normative. If there is such a request, it should be sent to team-liaisons@w3.org for approval.

While this page is public, some links may be W3C member-only.

Contact W3C about a new or existing liaison.

Liaisons

Liaison index:            
3 • A • B • C • D • E • F • G • H • I • J • K • M • N • O • P • S • T • U • V • W

Organization MOU W3C activities affected W3C contact Liaison contact
3GPP 3rd Generation Partnership Project   Media and Entertainment, SVG, Timed Text Kazuyuki Ashimura, Chris Lilley, François Daoust, Philippe Le Hégaret 3GPPLiaison alias,            
Paolo Usai,            
SVG: Tolga Capin
Accord Project   Verifiable claims,            
Blockchain
TBD Peter Hunn
ACM The Web Conference Steering Committee   Communications Pierre-Antoine Champin Dick Bulterman
Annotating All Knowledge Coalition (Steering Committee)   Digital Publishing Ivan Herman Maryann Martone, Dan Whaley
Access Board (US)   WAI Shawn Lawton Henry Sachin Pavithran, Ph.D.
Assistive Technology Industry Association (ATIA)   WAI Shawn Lawton Henry David Dikter
Alliance for Internet of Things Innovation (AIOTI)   Web of Things Dave Raggett Patrick Guillemin
Apache The Apache Software Foundation   Open Source TBD Apache board
Association of Radio Industries and Businesses (ARIB)   Media and Entertainment,       
Timed Text
Philippe Le Hégaret            
Kazuyuki Ashimura
Hisayuki Oomata (Timed Text)            
Joji Urano (Media and Entertainment)
Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC)   Media and Entertainment,       
Timed Text
Kazuyuki Ashimura,            
Philippe Le Hégaret
Madeleine Noland            
Michael Dolan
Automotive ISAC   Automotive Carine Bournez AutoISAC Analyst
Blissymbolics Communication International   Accessible Platform Architectures WG Roy Ran Russell Galvin
CableLabs (W3C Member)   Media and Entertainment Philippe Le Hégaret AC Rep
CEN (ELSSI EMD)   Semantic Web TBD David Leal
CESI China Electronics Standardization Institute   Generic Liaisons,            
WAI
Roy Ran Ms. Yuan Yuan
Consumer Technologies Association (CTA) MOU (2023-2028) Media and Entertainment François Daoust Michael Bergman
Continua Health Alliance   Device API, Mobile, HCLS Dominique Hazaël-Massieux Chuck Parker            
Jose Manrique Lopez de la Fuente
COVESA (previously known as GENIVI) MOU (2020-2024) Automotive Carine Bournez Steve Crumb
DASH Industry Forum (DASH-IF)   Media and Entertainment, HTML,            
TimedText
Michael[tm] Smith (HTML)            
Kazuyuki Ashimura (Media and Entertainment)            
Atsushi Shimono (TTML)
Iraj Sodagar
Digital TV Group   HTML, CSS, Canvas Element, Media extensions, Media and Entertainment, Testing. Kazuyuki Ashimura,            
François Daoust
Simon Gauntlett [DTG Technology Director], Chris Collis [Chair Security Group], George Robertson [Chair IP Delivery Group] , Ali Teffahi
DCMI Dublin Core   Semantic Web Ivan Herman AC Rep
DDI Alliance   Data, Semantic Web Pierre-Antoine Champin Darren S Bell
DAISY Consortium   WAI Shawn Lawton Henry George Kerscher
ECHONET Consortium   Web of Things Kazuyuki Ashimura Morio Hirahara
ECLASS   Web of Things Kazuyuki Ashimura Christian Block
Ecma International   HTML, Web Apps, I18n, Security
Testing
TBD Samina Husain

European Commission            
DG CONNECT

DG DIGIT

DG Enterprise

Multistakeholder Platform

DG JRC

  Generic Liaisons Rigo Wenning, Daniel Montalvo, Kevin White" From Commissioner level to PO.
European Disability Forum (EDF)   WAI Daniel Montalvo Alejandro Moledo
EMVCo   Web Payments Ian Jacobs Bastien Latge
European Standards Organizations (ESO) Joint Working Group (JWG) on eAccessibility   WAI Daniel Montalvo, Kevin White Fernando Machicado
European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI)   Generic Liaisons            
(Sophia Antipolis, ERCIM, WAI)
Rigo Wenning, Kevin White, Daniel Montalvo

Margot Dor,

Xavier Piednoir

Mike Pluke, and Mathias Schneider for M376

Federal Communications Commission (USA FCC)   WAI Shawn Lawton Henry Suzy Rosen Singleton
FIDO Alliance   Web Payments,            
Security,
Ian Jacobs Tony Nadalin
Financial Services Technology Consortium (FSTC)   Generic Liaisons Ralph Swick Dan Schutzer, Executive Director (and AC Rep)
Global Initiative for Inclusive ICTs (G3ICT)   WAI Kevin White Axel Leblois
GlobalPlatform   Security, Ubiquitous Web Application Ian Jacobs Gil Bernabeu (Technical Director),            
Kevin Gillick
GSM Association (GSMA)   Mobile, Network Friendly CG Dominique Hazaël-Massieux David Hutton (GSMA), Paul Gosden (GSMA TSG), Natasha Rooney (Overall Relationship)
Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV (HbbTV)   Media and Entertainment François Daoust Peter MacAvock. Co-Chair HbbTV Requirements Group
International Imaging Industry Association (I3A)   Semantic Web, Graphics Chris Lilley James A. Peyton

ICANN

(through Technical Liaison Group)

  URI, IDN, Generic Liaisons, Auctions TBD (was Wendy Seltzer, Jeff Jaffe) CEO, Chairman, board members, staff
International Color Consortium (ICC)   Graphics, CSS Chris Lilley William Li
IEEE Standards   Generic Liaisons TBD (was Jeff Jaffe) Karen McCabe (OpenStand)
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)  

Security, Privacy, WebRTC, Web of Things.

Generic Liaisons

Samuel Weiler & Philippe Le Hégaret (for media types)  IETF Liaisons
IIFAA (International Internet Finance Authentication Alliance)   Web Payments, Security An Qi (Angel) Li Sophia Wu
The Internet Governance Forum (IGF)   Generic Liaisons TBD (was Wendy Seltzer) IGF UN Secretary, chair
IGF Dynamic Coalition on Accessibility and Disability (DCAD)   WAI Shawn Lawton Henry Andrea Saks
IMS Global Learning Consortium, Inc.   WAI Shawn Lawton Henry Jutta Treviranus
Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC)   Web of Things Dave Raggett Skyler Lew Stephen Mellor
Industry 4.0   Web of Things Dave Raggett Prof Diedrich (Universität Magdeburg)
IPTV Forum Japan   Media and Entertainment, HTML, DAP, WebApps Kazuyuki Ashimura (Media and Entertainment, HTML), Dominique Hazaël-Massieux (DAP) Shozo Fukui
International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC)   Semantic Web Ivan Herman

Misha Wolf

Michael Steidl

ISO JTC 1 PAS status, ARO   Generic Liaisons Philippe Le Hégaret, Daniel Montalvo, Kevin White Norbert Bensalem, PAS Mentor, IBM

ISO JTC1/SC2 and its WG2

(Class C Liaison)

  I18N Richard Ishida Michel Suignard
ISO JTC1/ SC 34 XML, EPUB            
(Class C Liaison)
  XML,             
Digital Publishing
Ivan Herman Makoto Murata
ISO JTC1 SC35 WG6   WAI Daniel Montalvo, Kevin White Janina Sajka

ISO JTC1/SC 29/WG1 (JPEG)

(Class C Liaison)

  Graphics Chris Lilley

David Singer

Ms. Mayumi Koike

ISO JTC1/SC 29/WG3 (MPEG Systems)

(Class C Liaison)

 

Graphics, Media and Entertainment

Fonts, Timed Text

Atsushi Shimono (Timed Text)            
Chris Lilley (Fonts)

Kazuyuki Ashimura (Media and Entertainment)


Dr. Jean-Claude Dufourd

See the XG liaison statement

Ms. Mayumi Koike

Secretary, SC 29

Vladimir Levantovsky

ISO TC 68/ WG 4

(Class D Liaison)

  Web Services (on ISO side: Financial services) Yves Lafon Matthew Rawlings

ISO 20022 Registration Management Group.

(Class D Liaison)

  Web Payments Ian Jacobs Kris Ketels
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 41   Web of Things Dave Raggett Sangkeun YOO
ISO TC 204 Intelligent Transportation Systems/WG 1, 3, 9, 10, 14   Automotive Carine Bournez Adrian Guan
ISO TC 211 Geographic information   Spatial Data on the Web Bert Bos Mats Åhlin
ISO TC 22/SC 31/WG 5,6,8,10 Extended Vehicle   Automotive Carine Bournez Eric Wern
ISOC   Generic Liaisons TBD (was Jeff Jaffe) Kathy Brown
International Telecommunication Union (ITU)   Generic Liaisons Daniel Montalvo Various ITU staff
ITU-T Focus Group on Driver Distraction   TBD (was MMI) Kazuyuki Ashimura Scott Pennock ITU-T
ITU-T Group 13   TBD (was MMI) Kazuyuki Ashimura Gyu Myoung Lee
ITU-T SG13 Focus Group on AI for autonomous and assisted driving (FG-AI4AD)   Automotive Carine Bournez Bryn Balcombe
ITU-T Group 16 IPTV   Media and Entertainment, Web-based Signage Kazuyuki Ashimura SG16 Secretariat (Simão Campos, Rosa Angeles-León de Vivero)
ITU-T Group 20   Web of Things Kazuyuki Ashimura Gyu Myoung Lee, Cristina Bueti
ITU Joint Coordination Activity for Identity Management (JCA-IdM)   Decentralized Identity Pierre-Antoine Champin Jace Park
Japanese Industrial Standards Committee, X 8341-3 Working Group 2   WAI Roy Ran Makoto Ueki (InfoAxia)
Khronos Group   Immersive Web, WebGPU Working Group, Web Machine Learning Working Group, Accessible Platform Architecture Working Group Dominique Hazaël-Massieux Neil Trevett
Metaverse Standards Forum   Immersive Web Working Group Dominique Hazaël-Massieux, François Daoust Neil Trevett
MovieLabs   Media and Entertainment François Daoust AC Rep
Multi Stakeholder Platform for ICT standardisation (MSP)     Rigo Wenning, Dominique Hazaël-Massieux Carlos Lopez-Rodriguez and Paul Killeen from the European Commission
National Information Society Agency (NIA)   WAI Roy Ran Joon-Ho Hyun
OpenSSF   Security TBD Bennett Pursell

Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS)

(W3C Member)

 

Generic Liaisons,

HTML,

Security,

SVG (ODF liaison)

TBD (was Jeff Jaffe) AC Rep
OW2   MiniApps Fuqiao Xue Pierre-Yves Gibello and Christian Paterson
Open Connectivity Foundation (OCF)   Media and Entertainment, Testing, Web of Things Kazuyuki Ashimura, Dave Raggett Michael Richmond,            
Clarke Stevens,            
David McCall,            
Scott Lofgren,            
Daniel Park
OECD ITAC (charter)   Generic Liaisons, Privacy, Open Standard Rigo Wenning (TBC) Christine Runnegar, ISOC
Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) MOU (2017-2022) Spatial Data on the Web Bert Bos Scott Simmons, Ingo Simonis
OMA Open Mobile Alliance expired MoU with OMA CSS, Graphics HTML, Federated Social Web Chris Lilley,Dominique Hazaël-Massieuxx

Kieran McAleese

Kimmo Halonen

Mobile Web Initiative: Jari Alvinen

Federated Social Web: Goix Laurent Walter

Victoria Gray.

Object Management Group (OMG)   Web Services, DOM Philippe Le Hégaret James Nemiah
OneM2M   Web of Things Dave Raggett Yongjing Zhang
OpenMath Society   MathML Bert Bos David Carlisle
OPC Foundation   Web of Things Dave Raggett Stefan Hoppe
Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP)   Security, Privacy, TAG TBD (was Wendy Seltzer) Sebastien Deleersnyder
The Open Group   Generic Liaisons, Web of Things Dave Raggett  Scott Hansen; Chris Harding
PCI Security Council   Web Payments Ian Jacobs Updating as of May 2022
SMPTE   Media and Entertainment,       
Timed Text
Philippe Le Hégaret, Atsushi Shimono Mike Dolan
Telecommunications Technology Association (TTA)   Media and Entertainment Kazuyuki Ashimura DongHoon Lee
Trillium-II   Data Eric Prud'hommeaux Harold Solbrig
Unicode   I18N Richard Ishida Mark Davis
UNESCO   I18N, WAI, Generic Liaisons Richard Ishida, Shawn Lawton Henry Axel Plathe, Claudio Menezes, Irmgarda Kasinskaite
US Payments Forum   Web Payments Ian Jacobs Randy Vanderhoof
Vendorcom Forum   Web Payments J. Alan Bird Paul Rogers
VoiceXML Forum MoU with VoiceXML Forum Voice Browser, MMI Kazuyuki Ashimura Michelle Hunt

Web3D Consortium

(W3C Member)

  Graphics,            
Generic Liaisons
Chris Lilley Don Brutzman
WHATWG MOU HTML, DOM, Web IDL, HTML Media Capture, Worklets, Resource Hints, Preload, Media Playback Quality, Fetch Philippe Le Hégaret WHATWG Steering Group

Mission of W3C international liaisons

W3C is determined to improve W3C's liaisons with international organizations in the areas of policy and standardization and to reinforce W3C's commitment to developing one Web for all.

International Relations focuses on spreading W3C's messages and technologies beyond the Consortium's usual geographical and Web community frontiers. We pursue the vision and plan outlined in the white paper Worldwide Participation in the World Wide Web Consortium with the goal of making it easier for new stakeholders to discover and participate in W3C's work and values.

Contacting W3C to establish a liaison

To inquire about W3C liaisons and partnerships, or to ask for review of documents in case of existing liaisons, please send email to team-liaisons@w3.org which will reach various W3C staff members active in the liaisons area and end up in the right technical staff. Please see the public International Relations page for background. We have additional specific information about participation in W3C by EU-funded projects.

For relationships between W3C and government driven organizations like ISO, ITU, EU normalization (ETSI, CEN), UN efforts like IGF/WSIS, national bodies (ANSI, AFNOR, etc.), and for Internet Governance liaison activities with other Internet organizations like IETF, ICANN, ISOC, also use team-liaisons@w3.org.

About the liaison table

Each entry in the table above includes:

  • the name of the organization, linked to its homepage. In addition, formal agreements, like MoU, should be listed here
  • the W3C activities or technologies affected by the liaison
  • one or several contact names within W3C
  • one or several liaison contact names (preferably using an http URL, rather than a mailto)

For more information about a particular liaison, please refer to the contact page for the listed individual(s).

When an external organization wants to send an ingoing liaison statement to W3C, it should send it to team-liaisons@w3.org, CCing the W3C staff in contact indicated the table above, and assume that this statement will potentially be shared with the entire W3C membership.

When an internal W3C group (usually via its Chair) wants to send an outgoing liaison statement from W3C, it should CC it to team-liaisons@w3.org and to the W3C staff contact for the group, and assume that this statement will potentially be shared with the entire W3C membership.

Considerations when establishing a liaison

W3C finds its liaisons fall into two categories:

We list both types of liaisons in the table above. Per the W3C Process Document, all liaisons, of any kind, must be coordinated by the W3C Team due to requirements for public communication, IPR or confidentiality policies. Mutual membership agreements are also possible.

W3C may choose not to pursue a liaison with an organization that has selective or arbitrary membership policies that serve only to benefit pre-existing or dominant members.

Simple liaisons

In general, the goal of a simple liaison is for both parties to gain a better understanding of their respective activities and look for opportunities to work together. For example, W3C appreciates understanding how other organizations use W3C technology, whether they require extensions, the proper way to manage those extensions, how to bring extensions back into W3C, and so on. Other organizations may find a simple liaison valuable for soliciting W3C input on a web-related question.

Most often, W3C establishes simple liaisons with peer organizations, other standards bodies, or any other non-profit entity that may wish to build consensus around an emerging web technology. Simple liaisons are active as soon as both partie agree to make the information public in this page. Note that being in simple liaison with W3C on a given topic doesn't mean that W3C endorses or agrees to the other party work in any way.

Formal agreements for joint work

In some cases, W3C is asked to establish a formal liaison that has a contractual framework, either because there are joint deliverables, or an agreed share of technical responsibilities with coordination, with considerations for confidentiality, shared press coverage, or IPR.

While W3C supports all liaisons with other groups, the organization and development of these formal liaisons requires time and resources, and the agreement of the W3C membership at large. W3C's decision to pursue a liaison with a Partner is ultimately based on the perceived costs and benefits.

For a historical record of how Formal Liaisons are created, please see the 2003 Process Document, which used to described the details (no longer the case in the current Process).

W3C and De Jure standards

This section describes some of W3C's relationships with de jure bodies such as ISO, in addition to the direct technical activity liaisons mentioned above.

W3C is an "ISO/IEC JTC 1 PAS" Submitter

At the end of October 2010, W3C was approved as a JTC 1 Recognized PAS Submitter for an overall scope defined as "any stable core web technologies produced by W3C that are also in scope of JTC 1". The PAS process is standard transposition procedure whereby organizations accredited as valid PAS Submitters can send their specifications directly for country voting, to become ISO/IEC standards. See the W3C PAS Submission FAQ.

W3C Approved RS Originator Organization (ARO) status for ISO/JTC1

In January 2007, W3C became an Approved RS Originator Organization (ARO) for ISO/JTC1. This means that ISO/JTC1 standards may refer to W3C Recommendations "as-is." That process is described in the Letter Ballot on the JTC 1 Standing Document on Normative References.

W3C in the EU Multi Stakeholders Platform for ICT (MSP)

The Reform of the European standardisation system by the Council of the European Union (2012) allows civil servants to use and refer to specifications from open standardization fora and consortia such as W3C, in situations involving public funds. The Multistakeholder Platform (MSP) was set up as part of the reform to advise the Commission on its ICT Standardization work program, and W3C is part of it.

For more information about W3C's ARO or PAS status, please contact  team-liaisons@w3.org.