The World Wide Web Consortium
July 2019

Introduction

In 2016, the United Nations declared that “the spread of information and communications technology and global interconnectedness has great potential to accelerate human progress, to bridge the digital divide and to develop knowledge societies.” Although billions of people use the World Wide Web each day, a variety of obstacles stand in the way of its full potential to accelerate human progress:

• Hacking, snooping, and the theft of personal information have eroded trust in the Web. Misinformation, impersonation, and radicalization undermine democratic institutions.
• The World Wide Web Consortium has done pioneering work in the fields of accessibility and internationalization. However, without the proper features built in, modern Web experiences such as streaming media and virtual reality may be denied to hundreds of millions of users, increasing the digital divide.
• Web innovation must accelerate in order to keep pace with rapidly changing proprietary technology "silos." If not, we risk losing the world's premiere information commons.

Addressing these types of complex challenges requires global, multi-stakeholder initiatives with trusted mediation. For 25 years the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has played this role for the Web community. The Web Consortium community is now well-positioned to forge new partnerships in order to address today's most significant digital threats and opportunities. Please join us.

About the Web Consortium

Tim Berners-Lee founded the World Wide Web Consortium in 1994 to ensure the long-term growth of the Web. The organization primarily pursues this mission by convening industry, researchers, and the global community of Web developers to create open standards. Software developers implement these standards in browsers, servers, blogs, graphics editors, search engines, and all the other software that powers the Web experience. Web standards are blueprints for the digitally connected world.

As such, standards play an essential role in any strategy to address the complex challenges we face. Global standards constitute the toolkit for solutions that scale. Innovators build on open standards to solve hard problems. Furthermore, without the proper foundation, it can be nearly impossible to meet requirements for accessibility, internationalization, privacy, and security on the Web.

Standards that meet the varied needs of society do not happen by chance. They are created not by one company or country but through the work of the extended Web Consortium community. This community consists of:

• Members: More than 450 Members from around the world lead the development and implementation of standards.
• Staff: The Web Consortium is a not-for-profit organization. Its revenues come primarily from Membership dues. These dues and some grants support a staff of 50 to 60 people, led by Tim Berners-Lee and CEO Jeff Jaffe.
• Developers: More than 10,000 developers worldwide share their experiences with the standards and bring new ideas to the table.

This community has developed hundreds of open standards that have enabled the creation of more than a billion Web sites, including transformative phenomena such as social media, e-commerce, and search engines. W3C standards may be used by anyone at no cost: if they were not free, developers would ignore them. W3C technologies and guidelines make it possible for people with disabilities to access the Web. The Web supports communication in many of the world's languages. New W3C standards improve Web security through the development of authentication technologies that can replace weak passwords and reduce phishing and other sophisticated cyberattacks. In orchestrating these activities, the Web Consortium has earned a reputation for fairness, quality, and efficiency.

Though not well-known by the general public, the Web Consortium has earned recognition for its global impact: the Boston Globe ranked W3C the most important achievement associated with MIT in its first 150 years. The organization has won two Emmy Awards: in 2016 for its work to make online videos more accessible with captions and subtitles, and again in 2019 for standardization of a Full TV Experience on the Web. The Web Consortium's impact even extends beyond this planet: NASA has used W3C standards in both the Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers.

Partnership Opportunities

To meet the greater online challenges society now faces, the Web Consortium seeks new partnerships in support of its mission, and new funding beyond its traditional sources of revenue.

Organizations committed to improving digital inclusion and online security and privacy would make ideal partners. Below we describe some of the Web Consortium's current activities in these areas.

Enhancing Privacy and Security

Privacy and security —both integral to human rights and civil liberties— have long held an important place on the Web Consortium agenda. We have begun discussions about how to help users find trustworthy content on the Web without increasing censorship. However, we at the Web Consortium recognize that there is much more to do in this important area.

Digital Inclusion

2019 marked a milestone - in 2009 only 20% of the world was online; now 50% of the world are connected. As the next 50% of the world join the Web, we must ensure that the Web they join is safe, inclusive, international and accessible.

Accessibility

In 2006, the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) which reaffirmed that all persons with all types of disabilities should be able to enjoy all human rights and fundamental freedoms. The Convention defined access to information, including web and digital content, as a human right. Digital accessibility, including web accessibility, is key for equal access, opportunity and participation for all.

When websites and Web tools are properly designed and coded, people with disabilities can use them, and individuals, businesses, and society all benefit. The Web Consortium’s Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), launched in 1997, develops technical specifications, guidelines, and techniques, as well as supporting resources such as outreach and training materials to promote awareness and implementation. WAI’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) is regarded as the authoritative international standard for Web accessibility, and has been adopted or referenced by many governments around the world. However, as the complexity of the Web increases, and as technologies as diverse as digital publishing and virtual reality converge onto the Web, the need for up-to-date accessibility support in advanced technologies is increasing exponentially. Without the Web Consortium's efforts, people with disabilities would be left further behind.

Internationalization

Only a fraction of the world's population of almost 8 billion speaks English, and yet over 50% of online content is written in that one language. Those whose voice and language are not included on the Web will be increasingly marginalized and excluded. They will not receive the economic, educational or democratic benefits of the Web and by not having their presence, we lose the potential of the Web to reflect the richness of the world.

The Web Consortium launched the Internationalization of the World Wide Web Activity in 1998 to make the Web truly 'world wide'. For the Web to truly work for stakeholders all around the world engaging with content in various languages, there must be a collaboration of language experts, Web site designers, developers, and vendors who are active in moving the Web forward. We will only connect all communities that share a language when the Web supports all the world's languages.