WebPaymentsCommunityGroupCharter

Goals

The purpose of the Web Payments Community Group is to discuss, research, document, prototype, and create working systems that enable interoperable payment technologies for the Web. The goal is to create safe, decentralized systems and sets of open, patent and royalty-free technologies that allow people on the Web to send each other money as easily as they exchange instant messages and e-mail today.

In general, the group's desire is to provide an inclusive community where Web payment technologies, regardless of their origin, can be incubated, evaluated, refined, and implemented. The focus of the group will be to promote payment innovations based primarily on their technical merit. This approach invites competing technical designs to be submitted and incubated in the same group. The hope is that this will lead to either the merging of the best parts of each technology design, or a clear differentiation emerging between the two technologies.

Scope of Work

In general, the topics that are in scope are anything related to enabling interoperable payments on the Web. These topics include:

• The listing of products, assets, and services for sale on the Web/Internet.
• Transaction mechanisms where the Web/Internet is used as the communication medium.
• Digital receipt and digital contract data formats and protocols.
• Identity and privacy technologies as they relate to ensuring the proper identification and protection of parties engaging in exchanges of value.
• Security as it relates to ensuring the proper end-to-end protection and authenticity of exchanges of value.
• Technologies that are vital for the proper operation of the technologies listed above, but don't have a community actively incubating the technology.
• Legal, regulatory, and policy concerns that affect the successful deployment of any of the technology concepts listed above.

In general, the topics that are out of scope are anything not directly related to payment technologies on the Web. Some examples of these topics are:

• The benefits of one economic or political theory over another (the focus of the group is on technological solutions).
• Marketing or evangelizing of technologies not intended to be released under a license compatible with W3C specifications (discussing proprietary solutions should be restricted to elaborating upon technological advantages/disadvantages).

Work Items

In general, all documents related to payments on the Web are welcome. If there is someone that will commit to being an editor for a document, the group should agree to accept it as a work item even if it conflicts with previous work adopted by the community. New accepted work items that change the scope of the charter will kick off a re-chartering process given that the group wants to recharter in order to pull the work into the group.

The following work items have been approved by the group:

• TBD (list of specs go here - we need to vote on which ones the group wants to accept as work items)

Dependencies or Liaisons

• SWIFT
• US Federal Reserve
• IETF HTTPbis and HTTPauth Working Groups
• W3C Web Crypto Working Group
• Mozilla Persona / FirefoxID Community
• W3C Web Security Working Group
• Web Apps Working Group
• Web and Mobile Interest Group
• Web and TV Interest Group
• Web and Broadcasting Interest Group

Community and Business Group Process

Anything in this charter that conflicts with requirements of the Community and Business Group Process is void.

Choosing a Chair

• A Chairs duties include:
  • Driving inclusivity, identifying consensus within the group, and recording decisions.
  • Ensuring compliance with all W3C rules applicable to the group.
  • Being a liason between the group and all groups with which the group is coordinating.
  • Organizing the smooth operation of the group.
  • Engaging with media, performing outreach, and ensuring the transparent operation of the group.
• Chairs are elected by the group for a 2 year term, there may be up to two Chairs at any given time. There are no limits to how often chairs can be re-elected by the group.
• For an individual to run for election, they must be nominated by at least two people (other than themselves or an acting chair) and agree to the nomination. Once an election date is set, each candidate has one week to submit a position statement about their qualifications to chair the group. The voting poll will stay open for a minimum of 14 days and the candidate with the most votes wins.
• Chairs may be removed from their duties through a simple no-confidence vote. The no confidence vote must be requested by at least 3 members of the group and the vote will carry if 2/3rds of the votes cast request that the Chair is removed.

Decision process

This group will seek to make decisions when there is consensus. When the group discusses an issue on the mailing list or a teleconference call, and there is a call from the group for assessing consensus, after due consideration of different opinions, the Chair should record a decision and any objections. Participants may call for an online vote if they feel the Chair has not accurately determined the consensus of the group or if the Chair refuses to assess consensus. The call for a vote must specify the duration of the vote which must be at least 7 days and should be no more than 14 days. The Chair must start the vote within 7 days of the request. The decision will be based on the majority of the ballots cast. It is the Chair’s responsibility to ensure that the decision process is fair, respects the consensus of the CG, and does not unreasonably favor or discriminate against any group participant or their employer.

Transparency

• The group will conduct all of its work on its public mailing list and the weekly teleconference.
• Any decisions reached at any face to face meeting are tentative and must be confirmed on the mail list.

Amendments to this Charter

• The group can decide to work on a proposed amended charter, editing the text using the Decision Process described above. The decision on whether to adopt the amended charter is made by conducting a 30-day vote on the proposed new charter. The new charter, if approved, takes effect on either the proposed date in the charter itself, or 7 days after the result of the election is announced, whichever is later. A new charter must receive 2/3 of the votes cast in the approval vote to pass. The group may make simple corrections to the charter such as deliverable dates by the simpler group decision process rather than this charter amendment process.
• The group will use the amendment process for any substantive changes to the goals, scope, deliverables, decision process or rules for amending the charter.