W3C to Make Major Non-Profit Transition

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) announced major changes to its structure and governance in order to evolve and make decisions more quickly while maintaining consistency.
SIA Team
July 3, 2022

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the standards organization in charge of web standards such as HTML and browser privacy, has announced a significant change in its operations.

“We need a structure where we meet at a faster pace the demands of new web capabilities and address the urgent problems of the web. The W3C Team is small and bounded in size, and the Hosted model hinders rapid development and acquisition of skills in new fields. We need to put governance at the center of the new organization to achieve clearer reporting, accountability, greater diversity and strategic direction, and better global coordination.

A Board of Directors will be elected with a W3C Member majority. It will include seats that reflect the multi-stakeholder goals of the Web Consortium. We anticipate to continue joint work with today’s Hosts in a mutually beneficial partnership.” according to their official announcement.

It is said that the W3C will become a new public-interest non-profit organization in January 2023.

While many people use Google to learn how to use HTML elements like titles, meta descriptions, and headings, the W3C created the actual specifications.

Because it develops privacy standards in collaboration with stakeholders from around the world and the technology sector, the W3C is critical for the future of the web.

Stakeholders such as Google, Brave browser, Microsoft, and others are developing new browser privacy standards.

Others with a vested interest in tracking users across the web via third-party trackers, who are also W3C members, are attempting to influence the new privacy standards.

Despite the fact that the W3C is being restructured, the announcement sought to reassure the public that current decision-making processes will not change.