TheWorld Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main internationalstandards organization for theWorld Wide Web. Founded in 1994 byTim Berners-Lee, theconsortium is made up of member organizations that maintain full-time staff working together in the development oftechnical standards for the World Wide Web. As of May 2025,[update] W3C has 350 members.[4] The organization has been led by CEO Seth Dobbs since October 2023.[5] W3C also engages in education and outreach, develops software and serves as an open forum for discussion about the Web.
The organization tries to foster compatibility and agreement among industry members in the adoption of new standards defined by the W3C. Incompatible versions ofHTML 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 onparticle physics, notinformation technology. In April 1995, theFrench Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation became the European host of W3C, withKeio University Research Institute atSFC becoming the Asian host in September 1996.[9] Starting in 1997, W3C created regional offices around the world. As of September 2009, it had eighteen World Offices covering Australia, theBenelux 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.[10]
In October 2012, W3C convened a community of major web players and publishers to establish aMediaWiki wiki that seeks to document open web standards called theWebPlatform and WebPlatform Docs.
In 2022 the W3C WebFonts Working Group won an Emmy Award from theNational Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for standardizing font technology for custom downloadable fonts and typography for web and TV devices.[12]
On 1 January 2023, it reformed as a public-interest501(c)(3)non-profit organization.[13][14] In October 2023, Seth Dobbs was named as the organization's chief executive officer.[5]
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.[15]
W3C developstechnical specifications forHTML5,CSS,SVG,WOFF, theSemantic Web Stack,XML, and other technologies.[16] 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.[17]
After enough content has been gathered from 'editor drafts' and discussion, it may be published as aworking 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.[17]
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.[17]
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.[17]
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.[17]
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.[17]
While this step is important, it rarely causes any significant changes to a standard as it passes to the next phase.[17]
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.[17]
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.[17]
A recommendation may be updated or extended by separately-published, non-technicalerrata 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.[17]
Unlike theInternet 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.[17]
The W3C has a staff team of 70–80 worldwide as of 2015[update].[20] W3C is run by a management team which allocates resources and designs strategy, led by CEO Jeffrey Jaffe[21] (as of March 2010), former CTO ofNovell. 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]Antpolis
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 theWorld Bank's most recent grouping bygross national income per capita.[28]
In 2012 and 2013, the W3C started considering addingDRM-specificEncrypted Media Extensions (EME) toHTML5, which was criticised as being against the openness, interoperability, and vendor neutrality that distinguished websites built using only W3C standards from those requiring proprietaryplug-ins likeFlash.[29][30][31][32][33] On 18 September 2017, the W3C published the EME specification as a recommendation, leading to theElectronic Frontier Foundation's resignation from W3C.[34][35] As feared by the opponents of EME, as of 2020[update], none of the widely usedContent Decryption Modules used with EME are available for licensing without a per-browser licensing fee.[36][37]
