Interest Groups

The Chinese Web Interest Group provides a forum for W3C members to enhance the participation in Web standards work from the Chinese Web community.

The mission of the Internationalization (I18n) Interest Group, part of the Internationalization Activity, is to help the Working Groups within the Internationalization Activity and provide a forum to discuss issues related to the internationalization of the Web.

The mission of the Media and Entertainment Interest Group is to provide a forum for media-related technical discussions to track progress of media features on the Web within W3C groups and use of Web technologies by external organizations, and to identify use cases and requirements that existing and/or new specifications need to meet to achieve a tighter support of media services on the Web.

The Patent and Standards Interest Group (PSIG) is a forum for W3C Members and Invited Experts to discuss policy issues regarding the implementation of the W3C Patent Policy as well as new Patent-related questions that arise which require action or attention from the W3C Membership. The PSIG has no authority to create new policy. However, input from the PSIG on the operation of the policy and areas that might require further policy development by a W3C Working Group is welcome.

The mission of the Privacy Interest Group is to improve privacy on the Web by advising groups developing standards on how to avoid and mitigate privacy issues with their technologies. PING also suggests changes to existing standards and technologies to improve the privacy of existing systems. Finally, PING makes recommendations to the W3C Advisory Committee and the W3C TAG about whether a proposed standard would be beneficial or harmful for privacy on the web.

The Spatial Data on the Web Interest Group develops and maintains vocabularies and best practices that encourage better sharing of spatial data on the Web; and identify areas where standards should be developed jointly by both W3C and OGC.

The mission of the WAI Interest Group (WAI IG) is to promote awareness of, and engagement in, accessibility-related work throughout W3C. This includes augmenting wide reviews of WAI deliverables, and augmenting APA WG's review and discussion of accessibility aspects of deliverables being developed in W3C groups, including specifications, research topics, and educational materials; exploring web accessibility issues and solutions; and sharing information about web accessibility activities around the world.

The mission of the Web & Networks Interest Group is to explore solutions for web applications to leverage network capabilities in order to achieve better performance and resources allocation, both on the device and network.

The mission of the Web of Things Interest Group is to counter the fragmentation of the Internet of Things by introducing a Web-based abstraction layer capable of interconnecting existing Internet of Things platforms and complementing available standards. We aim to reduce costs through the global reach of Web standards, to enable open markets of services, and to unleash the power of the network effect. As a W3C Interest Group, we are seeking to build a shared understanding of the Web of Things, and to identify opportunities for initiating standards track work within W3C working groups. Liaisons between W3C, industry alliances and standards development organizations are already in discussion for two critical areas: semantic interoperability and end-to-end security across different platforms.

The mission of the Web Payment Security Interest Group is to enhance the security and interoperability of various Web payments technologies. The group pursues its mission by creating a forum for organizations to define areas of collaboration and identify gaps between existing technical specifications in order to increase compatibility among different technologies.