According to Webopedio, W3C is Short for World Wide Web Consortium, an international consortium of companies involved with the Internet and the Web. The W3C was founded in 1994 by Tim Berners-Lee, the original architect of the World Wide Web. The organization's purpose is to develop open standards so that the Web evolves in a single direction rather than being splintered among competing factions.

We listen because W3C continues to evolve to provide the community a productive environment for creating Web standards. W3C standards are created following a consensus-based decision process; consider aspects of accessibility, privacy, security, and internationalization; reflect the views of diverse industries and global stakeholders; balance speed, fairness, public accountability, and quality; benefit from Royalty-Free patent licensing commitments from participants; are stable (and W3C seeks to ensure their persistence at the published URI); benefit from wide review from groups inside and outside W3C; are downloadable at no cost; are maintained in a predictable fashion; are strengthened through interoperability testing.