1999-Overview.html
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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
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<style type="text/css">
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<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<title>1999 Historical View -- W3C Technology & Society Domain</title>
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<p><a href="http://www.w3.org/"><img width="72" src="/Icons/w3c_home.gif"
height="48" alt="W3C" border="0"></a><a href="http://www.w3.org/TandS"><img
src="/Icons/tands.gif" alt="Technology and Society" height="48" width="212"
border="0"></a></p>
<p><strong>OBSOLETE: 1999 Overview Page</strong></p>
<h1>The Technology & Society Domain:</h1>
<p><b><font size="+1">Understanding the social impact of the Web and reaching
out to affected communities</font></b>.</p>
<p align="center">[<a href="#Metdata">Metadata</a> | <a href="#Signature">XML
Signature</a> | <a href="#P3P">Privacy: P3P</a>| <a
href="#Ecommerce">Electronic Commerce</a> | <a href="#Policy">Public
Policy</a>]</p>
<h2>Mission</h2>
<p>The explosive growth of technology has forced the entire Web community to
look at society's ethical and legal issues from a new international
perspective. The Technology & Society Domain seeks to understand these
issues in light of new technology -- partly by changing the technology, and
partly by educating users about the technology's benefits, costs, and limits.
<br>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>News</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/p3pdeployment">The Platform for Privacy
Preferences 1.0 Deployment Guide</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.w3.org/2001/07/xkms-ws/cfp.html">Workshop on XML
Key Management</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xmldsig-core/">XML Signature Syntax and
Processing</a> - Candidate Recommendation</li>
<li><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-c14n">Canonical XML Version 1.0</a> -
W3C Recommendation</li>
<li><a href="/2000/12/drm-ws/">Workshop on Digital Rights Management for
the Web</a> (January 2001)</li>
<li>P3P <a href="/TR/2000/CR-P3P-20001215/Overview.html">Candidate
Recommendation Draft</a> (December 2000)</li>
<li><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-c14n ">Canonical XML</a> and <a
href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xmldsig-core/ ">XML Signature</a> Candidate
Recommendation (November 2000)</li>
<li><a
href="http://www.w3.org/2000/11/02-xml-encryption-ws/minutes.html">XML
Encryption workshop</a> (November 2000)</li>
<li>P3P patent infringement issue clarified: W3C issued a legal <a
href="http://www.w3.org/TR/P3P-analysis">analysis</a> finding that P3P
does not infringe the Intermind patent [<a
href="http://www.w3.org/1999/10/28-P3P-IntermindPatentAnalysis-PressRelease">Press
Release</a>, <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/P3P-analysis">Patent
Analysis</a>] (October 28 1999)</li>
<li>Common Markup for Micropayment Last Call <a
href="http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-Micropayment-Markup/">Draft</a> (August 25
1999)</li>
<li>"<a
href="http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/NOTE-schema-arch-19991007">Cambridge
Communiqué</a>": Members of the RDF & XML Schema working groups
clarify the relationship between XML and RDF Schema specs and outline a
work program for harmonizing approaches to Web data architecture.
(October 7 1999)</li>
<li>RDF <a href="http://www.w3.org/RDF/IGcharter">Interest Group</a>
Launched (August 20 1999)</li>
<li><a href="http://www.w3.org/Signature/">XML Signature Working Group</a>
launched jointly with IETF. (June 1999) </li>
</ul>
<hr>
<h2>Introduction: Trust on the Web</h2>
<p>The W3C Technology and Society Domain concentrates on issues that arise
from applications of Web technology. This includes devoting significant
resources to international public policy issues, including a full-time policy
analyst. Since Web technology cuts across nations and cultures, W3C is
committed to designing mechanisms which will support a diverse range of <a
href="/Policy/Overview.html">public policy options</a>. Local policy control
must be possible without cultural fragmentation or domination. In turn, W3C's
Team and its Members work to educate the public and policy makers about the
Web's capabilities, and how these affect, and are affected by, proposed
policies. Our current focus is, broadly, on establishing trust in the new
medium of the Web. This is a difficult problem, involving both social and
technical issues. Trust is established through a complex and ill-understood
social mechanism including relationships, social norms, laws, regulations,
traditions, and track records. Our activities are chosen to focus on specific
areas that are both important and tractable. There is a core of technical
issues that are required in any system that is to be trusted:</p>
<ol>
<li>The ability to <b>make statements</b> that have agreed upon meanings.
The W3C <a href="/Metadata/">Metadata Activity</a> provides a means to
create machine-readable statements.</li>
<li>The ability to know <b>who made the statement</b> and to be assured
that the statement is really theirs. The W3C <a href="/DSig">Digital
Signature Initiative</a> provides a mechanism for signing metadata in
order to establish who is making the machine-readable statement.</li>
<li>The ability to <b>establish rules</b> that permit actions to be taken,
based on the statements and a relationship to those who made the
statements. The <a href="/TR/PR-PICSRules">PICS Rules</a> specification
allows rules to be written down so they can be understood by machines and
exchanged by users.</li>
<li>The ability to <b>negotiate</b> binding terms and conditions. The
now-completed <a href="/ECommerce/JEPI.html">JEPI project</a> created the
<a href="/Protocols/PEP">Protocol Extension Protocol</a> (PEP) to provide
for negotiation on the Web. Negotiation is also at the core of the <a
href="/P3P">Platform for Privacy Preferences Project</a> (P3P).</li>
</ol>
<hr>
<h2>Domain Activities</h2>
<h2><a href="/Metadata/" name="Metdata">Metadata</a></h2>
<p>Metadata means "data about data" or "information about information" but
probably more importantly now it should be taken to mean "machine
understandable information, about information on the web". The Metadata
activity was formed in 1997 from the recognition within the Consortium of a
common subtask to existing activities such as <a href="/PICS">PICS</a> and <a
href="/DSig">DSig</a> at W3C, <a href="/Protocols/">HTTP</a> and <a
href="http://www.ics.uci.edu/~ejw/authoring/">WebDAV</a> at the IETF, the <a
href="http://purl.org/metadata/dublin_core">Dublin Core</a> and many other
projects.</p>
<p>The Metadata activity is the architectural underpinning of many of the
Technology and Society activities. W3C's work on Digital Signatures, Privacy
Protection, and Intellectual Property Rights Management are all based on the
Resource Description Framework (RDF) work that is at the heart of the
Metadata Activity. In addition, W3C is commited to creating a graceful
transition from its current metadata technology (PICS) to RDF.</p>
<p>A full set of charters for the Metadata activities has been sent to the
W3C Advisory Committee for approval:</p>
<ol>
<li><a href="/Metadata/Activity">The Activity statement of the Metadata
Activity</a></li>
<li>[members only] <a href="/Metadata/Group/CGcharter">The Metadata
Coordination Group charter</a></li>
<li><a href="/PICS/Interest/Charter">The PICS Interest Group
charter</a></li>
<li>[members only] <a href="/PICS/Rules/Group/Charter">The PICS Rules
Working Group charter</a></li>
<li>[members only] <a href="/RDF/Group/SyntaxCharter">The RDF Model and
Syntax Working Group charter</a></li>
<li>[members only] <a href="/RDF/Group/SchemaCharter">The RDF Schema
Working Group charter</a></li>
</ol>
<p>Milestones for the RDF groups are assembled together on the [members only]
<a href="/Metadata/Group">Metadata Coordination Group's home page</a>.</p>
<h2><a href="/Signature/Overview.html" name="Signature">XML Signature
(xmldsig)</a></h2>
<p>One element of trust is the ability to reliably associate a statement with
the person or organization who made it. While the underlying cryptographic
technology to accomplish this is available and widely known, it has not yet
been applied to a general-purpose system for creating machine readable
statements.</p>
<p>Following a successful <a
href="http://www.w3.org/DSig/signed-XML99/">workshop</a> on approaches to
digital signatures, the W3C launched a joint <a
href="http://www.w3.org/Signature/">Working Group</a> on XML Signatures with
the IETF. The Working Group's charter reflects the sentiment that an
important first step toward building broader trust infrastructures on the Web
is to develop a simple XML Signature syntax. Therefore, this Activity will
not produce specifications for trust semantics beyond the simple facility to
associate a signature key with a document. Key documents include:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xmldsig-requirements">XML-Signature
Requirements</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xmldsig-core/">XML Signature Core Syntax
and Processing</a></li>
</ul>
<p>A related but earlier W3C Activity <a
href="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-DSig-label/">specified</a> a method of adding
extensions to PICS 1.1 so as to sign PICS labels.</p>
<h2><a href="/P3P/" name="P3P">Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P)</a></h2>
<p>This area involves the constant struggle between the need for Web content
providers to gain information about their readership and the need for these
individuals to control the release of this information to others. By
generating more transparency on data collection practices, the recently
initiated P3P Project will address the twin goals of meeting data protection
expectations of consumers on the Web while assuring that the medium remains
available and productive for electronic commerce. Following the principle of
providing consumers notice of site privacy polices, and allowing users to
express and act upon their privacy preferences in a flexible manner, one goal
enhances the success of the other.</p>
<h2><a href="/Policy" name="Policy">Public Policy Role</a></h2>
<p>Since Web technology cuts across nations and cultures, W3C is committed to
designing mechanisms which will support a diverse range of public policy
options. Local policy control must be possible without cultural fragmentation
or domination. In turn, W3C's Team and its Members work to educate the public
and policy makers about the Web's capabilities, and how these affect, and are
affected by, proposed policies.</p>
<h2><a href="/ECommerce" name="Ecommerce">Electronic Commerce</a></h2>
<p>An important factor in the growth of the Web is electronic commerce: the
ability to buy, sell, and advertise goods and services to customers and
consumers. The Web is a new communications medium and, like all new media,
requires us to rethink the existing solutions to age-old problems. The World
Wide Web Consortium is concerned with the evolution of the medium itself. We
must both understand the problems and work with our members to contribute to
the solutions. The Electronic Commerce Interest Group is a forum designed to
allow the members to share information with the Consortium staff and other
members about problems and solutions, priorities and work underway in the
area of Electronic Commerce.</p>
<h2><a href="/Security" name="Security">Security</a></h2>
<p>An important factor in the growth of the Web is the trust that can be
placed in the quality, provenance, reliability, and privacy of information
available from or transferred over the Web. The Web, while relying on the
underlying security offered by the Internet, has trust and security problems
related to the needs of applications, and these cannot be supplied strictly
at the network level. The World Wide Web Consortium is concerned with the
evolution of the Web, and that requires understanding the security and trust
requirements placed on the applications that use the Web.</p>
<hr>
<h2><a href="www.w3.org/People/domain?domain=Technology+and+Society">About
the Technology & Society Team</a></h2>
<p>The <a
href="http://www.w3.org/People/domain?domain=Technology+and+Society">Technology
& Society Team</a> presently includes eight staff members. Daniel
Weitzner is the Domain Leader. Danny joined the W3C Team in September,
1998. Before joining the W3C, he was co-founder and Deputy Director of the
Center for Democracy and Technology, an Internet civil liberties organization
in Washington, DC. He was also Deputy Policy Director of the Electronic
Frontier Foundation. The team has expertise in a number of areas, including
security, electronic commerce, intellectual property rights, and public
policy. Furthermore, the team has considerable knowledge in project
management and multilateral Member development groups. As of November 1999
the team consists of:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="#djweitzner%40w3.org">Daniel J. Weitzner</a> : Technology and
Society Domain Leader and <a href="http://www.w3.org/Policy">Public
Policy</a></li>
<li><a href="#danbri%40w3.org">Dan Brickley</a> : <a
href="http://www.w3.org/Metadata/">Metadata</a> and<a
href="http://www.w3.org/Metadata/RDF">RDF</a></li>
<li><a href="#massimo%40w3.org">Massimo Marchiori</a> : <a
href="http://www.w3.org/P3P">P3P</a> and <a href="/XML/Query">XML
Query</a></li>
<li><a href="#tmichel%40w3.org">Thierry Michel</a> : <a
href="http://www.w3.org/ECommerce">Electronic Commerce</a> (<a
href="http://www.w3.org/ECommerce/Micropayments">Micropayments</a>) and
<a href="http://www.w3.org/AudioVideo/">Synchronized Multimedia: <acronym
title="Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language">SMIL</acronym></a></li>
<li><a href="#reagle%40w3.org">Joseph Reagle</a> : <a
href="http://www.w3.org/Signature">XML Signatures</a> and <a
href="http://www.w3.org/Policy">Public Policy</a></li>
<li><a href="#swick%40w3.org">Ralph Swick</a> : <a
href="http://www.w3.org/Metadata/">Metadata</a> and <a
href="http://www.w3.org/Metadata/RDF">RDF</a></li>
<li><a href="#rigo%40w3.org">Rigo Wenning</a> : <a
href="http://www.w3.org/Policy">Public Policy</a>, <a
href="/P3P/">P3P</a>, <a href="/2000/12/drm-ws/Overview.html">DRM</a> and
European Liaisons</li>
</ul>
<hr>
<h2>Future Work Items</h2>
<h2><a href="/IPR/" name="IPR">Intellectual Property Rights</a></h2>
<p>In early 1996, a number of Members expressed interest in having the
Consortium work with them to address issues of protecting intellectual
property on the Internet. Member concerns include clarifying their corporate
positions on the subject and suggesting other organizations with whom W3C
might wish to partner to further investigate policy issues. W3C is currently
identifying in which areas it can be most helpful. <br>
</p>
<hr>
<p><a href="http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/ipr-notice#Copyright"
rel="Copyright">Copyright</a> © 1999 <a href="http://www.w3.org/"><abbr
title="World Wide Web Consortium">W3C</abbr></a> <sup>®</sup> (<a
href="http://www.lcs.mit.edu/"> <abbr
title="Massachusetts Institute of Technology">MIT</abbr></a>, <a
href="http://www.inria.fr/"><abbr lang="fr"
title="Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et Automatique">INRIA</abbr></a>,
<a href="http://www.keio.ac.jp/">Keio</a>), All Rights Reserved. W3C <a
href="http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/ipr-notice#Legal_Disclaimer">liability</a>,
<a
href="http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/ipr-notice#W3C_Trademarks">trademark</a>,
<a href="http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/copyright-documents"
rel="Copyright">document use</a> and <a
href="http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/copyright-software"
rel="Copyright">software licensing</a> rules apply. Your interactions with
this site are in accordance with our <a
href="http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/privacy-statement#Public">public</a>
and <a
href="http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/privacy-statement#Members">Member</a>
privacy statements.</p>
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