The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (30 December 2018):

World Wide Web Consortium
W3C
W3 Consortium

    (W3C) The main standards body for the
   web.  W3C works with the global community to
   establish international standards for client and server
   protocols that enable on-line commerce and communications on
   the Internet.  It also produces reference software.

   W3C was created by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
   (MIT) on 25 October 1994.  Netscape Communications
   Corporation was a founding member.  The Consortium is run by
   MIT LCS and INRIA, in collaboration with CERN where the
   web originated.  W3C is funded by industrial members but its
   products are freely available to all.  The director is Tim
   Berners-Lee who invented the web at the Center
   for European Particle Research (CERN).

   (http://w3.org/).

   (1996-11-03)