The Internet Society & the World Wide Web Consortium
July 2019

Executive Summary

Tim Berners-Lee quote: The Web is humanity connected by technology.

Since its founding 25 years ago by Web Inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the World Wide Web Consortium has developed the foundational technical standards upon which the Web has flourished. The Web and its place in society have changed dramatically, and the Web Consortium has been at the core of its technical interoperability. While incremental changes have helped us to keep pace with the Web's evolving technologies and uses, we need a more dramatic transformation to address the opportunities and threats the Web now faces and to continue to shape its future constructively.

To evolve our organization to serve the growing needs of the Web, we are creating a new legal entity. We seek the Internet Society's support so we can strengthen the Web to foster greater digital inclusion, provide a level playing-field to promote innovation and continue to ensure that Web standards and Web technologies work to the benefit of humanity.

Given ISOC's role in ensuring an open, secure, and trustworthy Internet, and the importance of global technical standards in achieving those goals, we ask ISOC to contribute to our Establishment Fund to facilitate our transition to a stand-alone legal entity. A $5 million donation will provide a catalyst for the Web Consortium to spin off from its host institutions and seek independent 501(c)(3) status. It will also provide for flexibility and means to fund efforts that our management and future Board of Directors deem essential to our mission.

Why the Web Consortium seeks the support of the Internet Society

The Internet Society has long promoted the development of the Internet as a global technical infrastructure, a resource to enrich people’s lives, and a force for good in society.

The Web was envisioned by Tim Berners-Lee as a global information sharing space which would connect people and encourage understanding and sharing of knowledge. It is now an indispensable, exciting and vital global commons. The health of the Web relies in large part on leadership by organizations such as the Web Consortium that have built a global community, earned that community's trust, acted as a global and neutral body and scaled along with the Web.

However, society is now reckoning with fears about social, political and technological misuse of the Web. Today, harassment, snooping, exploitation of personal data, fake news, hacking, information silos, fingerprinting, fraud, malware, phishing, ads and user tracking are rampant on platforms and sites that should ideally be a force for good.

Web browsing is increasing: showing up in e-book readers, set-top boxes, phones, automobiles, etc., yet the number of distinct browser engines is shrinking. This and other convergences of power and platforms mean that even as the problems demanding a neutral multi-stakeholder technical forum grow, there are powerful business forces which are trying to set the agenda for the web. The role of outside review and a trusted organization with a process that provides a level playing field and broad community input is increasingly vital.

The Web Consortium has, since its inception, ensured that values of openness, transparency and neutrality are at the forefront in our process. Tim Berners-Lee has declared since its start that the Web must not fragment or be controlled by powerful self-serving interests. With threats to the open Web becoming increasingly abundant, including walled gardens in which applications, devices and social media sites are migrating away from open to closed platforms, the Web Consortium needs greater independence in order to continue building an open, interoperable Web that works for everyone.

2019 marked a milestone; in 2009 only 20% of the world was online; now, 50% of the world is connected. New connectedness raises new opportunities and challenges. Today’s Web empowers more creators, more end-users and more high-value services. Privacy and trust are elusive, but critical.

The Web Consortium cannot stay the same shape while the industries and technologies in which it works change dramatically. A new era requires new solutions, new approaches and new institutions.

What the Web Consortium as a Legal Entity provides

We are proud of the work the Web Consortium has done over the past 25 years but are aware of the breadth of work that awaits. The problems of a new Web cannot be addressed with the same tools or the same structure.

The World Wide Web Consortium Legal Entity will be more responsive to fast moving changes, without being tethered to our current academic structures. We have revamped our way of working to make it more agile without losing key process steps that ensure transparency and accountability. The Web Consortium Legal Entity will make our fundamental processes even more agile to match the continuous development model of the Web.

The last several years have seen a broad expansion of the scope of the Web platform. It is difficult to evolve this platform as a single specification. We need to be free to make new investments like remodularizing Web specifications. The Web Consortium Legal Entity will take on additional work to ensure that all of these elements integrate into a coherent architecture.

We know that in a time when many Web users fear that powerful interests are dominating or abusing technologies that our neutrality is important. The Web Consortium Legal Entity requires financial backing that will allow us to stand up against strong interests to ensure that a neutral consortium will have the freedom to make hard choices.

A significant area for the Web Consortium Legal Entity will be to work to strengthen and to grow as a voice for diversity, fairness and respect in our community and build global outreach; in particular the Global South. Our offices currently represent us in 20 countries including Australia, Morocco, Brazil, India, Senegal, South Africa, Korea and across the UK and Europe.

The Web Consortium has grown its staff and broadened its global footprint over the last two decades to better serve the world, but the Legal Entity will be more agile in skills development. As the pace of new technologies, skills, and tools grows apace, the staff of the Legal Entity must be effective in all the many areas that relate to the intersection between technology and public policy.

As the Web expands to include the next 3 billion users the Web Consortium Legal Entity needs more support in order to meet the evolving needs of Web users everywhere. We need to safeguard it to ensure that the Web that the next 50% of the world joins is not closed, proprietary or limited but rather open, accessible, interoperable, and international. The Web must remain a source for innovation, sharing, creation and empowerment for all. We would not be serving the users of the Web and our community well if we did not clearly see that extraordinary change is necessary.

The world increasingly requires that those who care about preserving the benefits and potential of the Web stand up for its users and protect their digital civil liberties. No one entity can guarantee the integrity of an open, collective platform, but together, we can continue to work for the good of the Web and we ask that the Internet Society join us in working to make this happen.

Translating the needs of society into technology

Technologies that meet the deep needs of society do not happen by chance. They are designed and standardized, not by one company, country, or community, but through the work of the Web Consortium. This is why we have created an Establishment Fund for the Legal Entity, to give us the financial support and security to enable this important transition. Our vision is to secure a group of core mission-aligned Sponsors to power Web standardization into the next era. Ultimately these Sponsors of the Web Consortium will enable billions of global web users to have the benefit of an open accessible web for all.

The prospect of the Web Consortium being able to operate as a single global organization with more freedom to work for the good of the Web is exciting, but it requires significant financial support. To expand and thrive we need the support of Sponsors who are champions of the Web and share our passion for creating technologies to benefit the world.

We would be honored to include the Internet Society as one of the core Establishment Fund Sponsors, given ISOC’s history of supporting the work of the Web Consortium and our deeply shared focus on creating a just and vibrant technological landscape.

As you know, between 2010 and 2013 the Web Consortium received funding from the Internet Society further to a resolution by its Board of Trustees to support our efforts to provide a more agile, inclusive, and flexible organizational structure in support of the Web community. To maximize our flexibility in establishing a new organizational vision, funding of $2.5 million over three years was made available as a grant without attaching specific milestones.

The Internet Society’s generous donation enabled us to re-engineer the organization. With a maximum length of three years for these funds, we moved and progressed very quickly, as shown in the achievements we regularly shared with the ISOC board at the time. Notable achievements included:

The Internet Society has given substantially to the Internet Engineering Task Force as its organizational home. . Given the longstanding close partnership between IETF and the Web Consortium, we hope our one-time $5 million donation request is in line with Internet Society practice of investing in both the Internet-level and the Web-level, thus fully supporting the development of a global technical infrastructure, a resource to enrich people’s lives, and a force for good in society.

Below we describe some of the areas where we believe the Internet Society and the Web Consortium share common interests including: building a Web For All that supports the needs of users everywhere, and catering to the needs of businesses and industry by enhancing the core of the Web.

Key focus areas

"The power of the Web is in its universality.
Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect."
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the Web and Director of the World Wide Web Consortium

Part of the Web Consortium’s mission is to ensure a Web For All, regardless of ability, mobility, language, script or culture. We have done pioneering work in the fields of Web accessibility and internationalization as well as enhancing Web security and privacy With the Legal Entity, we intend to expand this work and address new challenges ahead, but require more resources to do so.

As the next 50% of the world join the Web, we must ensure that the Web they join is inclusive, international, accessible, is one which reflects and works for them and allows them the most vital of digital liberties - the ability to participate fully in the Web and in helping to create our future world.

Web 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, in accessible formats and technologies, as a human right. 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. The three de-jure European Standards Organizations, CEN, CENELEC, and ETSI have adopted “Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 in the recently updated version of EN 301 549 “Accessibility requirements for ICT products and services.” W3C staff involvement fosters continued harmonization of digital accessibility standards and technical guidance worldwide.

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 to ensure accessibility of newer digital technologies, people with disabilities, including in communities with less technology access, 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 and participation, we lose the potential of the Web to reflect the full richness of the world.

The Web Consortium launched the Internationalization Activity (i18n) 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. The Web Consortium Internationalization Activity has developed a language matrix of International typography which is supported on the Web. We will only be able to connect all communities that share a language when the Web supports all the world's languages.

 Privacy and security

Privacy and security have long held an important place in the Web Consortium's priorities. For example, our work has been instrumental in improving Web security through the development of authentication technologies such as WebAuthn, that can replace weak passwords and reduce phishing and other sophisticated cyber attacks.

However, users rightfully fear the misuse of their personal data and being tracked online, including browser fingerprinting, the spread of disinformation, and other online harms. These are difficult and urgent challenges. We have begun discussions about how to help users find trustworthy content on the Web without increasing censorship. Due to our community of experts and long advocacy for Web security, the Web Consortium community is well-positioned to take on these issues but needs additional support.

Enhancing core technology and industry impact

The Web Consortium enables many functions and capabilities on both the Internet and Web by carrying out a wide range of Web standardization work that we divide into enhancements in core Web technology and associated application areas (e.g. HTML5, CSS, Fonts, SVG, Audio, Web performance etc.), and a focus on businesses and industry (e.g. Web Payments, Publishing, Automotive, Telecom and Entertainment, Data, Web of Things).

Our biannual Strategic Highlights report on the latest progress and advances in each of those, but of particular and timely import:

Diversifying Involvement and Participation

The Web Consortium has been essential to building a Web that allows all to participate, create and innovate online and ensure that the Web works for humanity. However, there is so much more that can and must be done. Our success depends on a number of factors:

Adoption of Web Consortium standards is voluntary, and so the world will only use them if they meet real-world needs, are of the highest quality, are developed in a timely fashion and are widely adopted.

Conclusion


As we embark in restructuring the Web Consortium after twenty-five years of existence, we are proud that the Web has come a long way but we are aware that myriad threats and opportunities lay ahead. This change comes at an important time in our own evolution but also in the evolution of the Web. Our society, our world, and the Web face many challenges now and so we seek your support in order to continue our mission to ensure that Web technologies work together for the good of the Web, and a Web which is good for all.

Given our history and track record, your financial contribution toward our Establishment Fund will allow us to fund new innovations in key areas that support a safe, accessible, open, and global Web that is truly “for everyone.”

More about the World Wide Web Consortium

Sir Tim Berners-Lee founded our organization, the Web Consortium, in 1994 to ensure the long-term growth of the Web. We do so by convening industry, researchers, and the global community of Web developers to create freely-available, innovative open standards for the whole web platform. Software developers implement these standards in browsers, servers, blogs, graphics editors, search engines, automobiles and all the other software that powers the Web experience. Web standards are the building blocks and blueprints for our digitally connected world.

The Web Consortium community extends far beyond our Membership of large companies, universities, governments, startup and advocates. Standardization work at the Web Consortium is conducted in 30 working groups, a dozen interest groups and over 12,000 developers worldwide participate in discussions to incubate new work.

concentric circles with Team, members, community and web users

We have worked to create, build, and expand an open Web that is accessible to all, from any device and in any language; a Web that empowers all of us to achieve our dignity, rights, and potential as humans.

Our open standards have impacted billions of Web users. The Web Consortium has a reputation for fairness, neutrality, quality, efficiency and trustworthiness. A few of our achievements include