W3C - News

• W3C Invites Implementations of HTML Ruby Markup Extensions

  The Internationalization Working Group has published HTML Ruby Markup Extensions as a W3C Candidate Recommendation Snapshot. Ruby, a form of interlinear annotation, are short runs of text alongside the base text. They are typically used in East Asian documents to indicate pronunciation or to provide a short annotation. This specification revises and extends the markup model established by HTML to express ruby.Comments are welcome via Github issues by 3 July 2026.

• Upcoming: W3C/GS1 Workshop on E-commerce for Humans and AI Agents

  W3C announced today the W3C/GS1 Workshop on E-commerce for Humans and AI Agents, 8-9 September 2026, in Zurich, Switzerland, with remote participation. The event is hosted by Google.Web content has historically been designed for humans, even when pages also expose structured data through APIs or embedded JSON-LD using vocabularies such as schema.org and the extension GS1 Web Vocabulary. LLMs and AI Agents are becoming a new intermediary between that content and end users: they summarize search results, follow links, and may support users in online activity before a person ever visits a page directly. This workshop aims to share experiences of creating content with AI Agents in mind. What are the practices that are most effective? What are the pitfalls? What shifts do content creators need to make in order to maximize the return on the investment in time, energy, and skill? The impetus for the workshop is from e-commerce, which will be a particular focus of the event. However, the discussion is expected to be informed by broader input related to content creation and publication.If you wish to participate, please submit either a "Position Statement" or an "Expression of Interest" by June 26, 2026. See submission instructions.The organizers and the Programme Committee will review submissions and use them to shape the workshop agenda, identify speakers, and ensure a useful range of perspectives across the workshop topics. Attendance is free for invited participants and is open to people who can contribute relevant experience, use cases, technical perspectives, implementation experience, research findings, or standardization questions. We aim to include diverse participation from relevant communities, including: Content creators and curators of all kindsLLM and AI Agents providers, including in-browser AI AgentsBrands making products to sell, and retailers selling themSearch Engine Optimization practitionersOnline data providers If you have any questions, please contact the Programme Committee at group-ecommerce-agents-pc@w3.org.

• W3C initiates leadership transition

  W3C leadership transitionW3C has announced a leadership transition. Dominique Hazaël-Massieux has been appointed Interim CEO with immediate effect.Please read more in our Press Release.

• Proposed Advancement of Pointer Events Level 3 to W3C Recommendation

  Today, the W3C Team proposed advancing Pointer Events Level 3 to W3C Recommendation. This specification was published by the Pointer Events Working Group as a Candidate Recommendation Draft on 22 May 2026. The features in this specification extend or modify those found in Pointer Events, a W3C Recommendation that describes events and related interfaces for handling hardware-agnostic pointer input from devices including a mouse, pen, or touchscreen. For compatibility with existing mouse-based content, this specification also describes a mapping to fire Mouse Events for other pointer device types.This revision includes new features: altitudeAngle, azimuthAngle, pointerrawupdate event, associated coalesced events, and built-in predicted events. This revision of Pointer Events is intended to supersede Pointer Events Level 2.

• Updated Candidate Recommendation: Web Authentication: An API for accessing Public Key Credentials Level 3

  The Web Authentication Working Group invites implementations of an updated Candidate Recommendation Snapshot of Web Authentication: An API for accessing Public Key Credentials Level 3. This specification defines an API enabling the creation and use of strong, attested, scoped, public key-based credentials by web applications, for the purpose of strongly authenticating users. Conceptually, one or more public key credentials, each scoped to a given WebAuthn Relying Party, are created by and bound to authenticators as requested by the web application. The user agent mediates access to authenticators and their public key credentials in order to preserve user privacy. Authenticators are responsible for ensuring that no operation is performed without user consent. Authenticators provide cryptographic proof of their properties to Relying Parties via attestation. This specification also describes the functional model for WebAuthn conformant authenticators, including their signature and attestation functionality.Comments are welcome via Github issues by 23 June 2026.

• First Public Working Draft: SHACL 1.2 User Interfaces

  The Data Shapes Working Group has published today a First Public Working Draft of SHACL 1.2 User Interfaces. This specification describes Shapes Constraint Language (SHACL) User Interfaces. This specification is part of the SHACL 1.2 family of specifications. See the SHACL 1.2 Overview for a more detailed introduction to them.

• Group Note Draft: Threat Model for the Web

  The Security Interest Group has published the first draft of a Group Note titled Threat Model for the Web. This document describes the Threat Model for the Web and include the Web Security Model and may include the goals that have not yet been achieved across the whole web platform, but which will still be applied in reviews of new and changed specifications.

• IMSC Text Profile 1.3 is now a W3C Recommendation

  The Timed Text Working Group is thrilled to announce the publication of IMSC Text Profile 1.3 as a W3C Recommendation. IMSC Text Profile 1.3 is the most recent addition to the IMSC family of specifications for the authoring and delivery of subtitles and captions worldwide. The rich styling and structured markup make it an ideal choice for expressive subtitles and AI training sets. This maintenance update improves on the IMSC 1.2 Text Profile by adding support for superscript and subscript text, and provides authoring guidelines for the Japanese language. The IMSC Hypothetical Render Model is also factored out as a separate Recommendation to ease future maintenance.

• First Public Working Draft: Recognized Entities v1.0

  The Verifiable Credentials Working Group has published today a First Public Working Draft of Recognized Entities v1.0. This specification describes a data model with which one or more recognized entities, such as one or more persons and/or organizations, can be described as known to perform specific actions, such as issuing or verifying a verifiable credential. The data model enables the publication or direct sharing of such information, providing a cryptographically-verifiable and privacy-preserving mechanism through which a holder can demonstrate that an entity whose credential they are using is recognized within a particular ecosystem.The Working Group welcomes comments via the GitHub repository issues, the reference of which is also in the header of the document.

• W3C Advisory Committee Elects Advisory Board

  The W3C Advisory Committee has elected the following people to fill four seats on the W3C Advisory Board (AB), starting 1 July 2026: Daniel Appelquist, Wei Ding, Elena Lape, and Andrew Wafaa. They join continuing AB participants, Theresa O'Connor, Hiroshi Ota, Avneesh Singh, Hidde de Vries, Song Xu, and Brent Zundel.Many thanks to the departing participants for their contributions to the AB, Max Gendler and Tatsuya Igarashi, whose terms end at the end of June 2026.Created in March 1998, the Advisory Board provides ongoing guidance to the W3C Team on issues of strategy, management, legal matters, process, and conflict resolution. The Advisory Board also serves the W3C Members by tracking issues raised between Advisory Committee meetings, soliciting Member comments on such issues, and proposing actions to resolve these issues. The Advisory Board manages the evolution of the Process Document. As part of a W3C Council, members of the Advisory Board hear and adjudicate on Submission Appeals and Formal Objections. For several years, the AB has conducted its work in a public wiki. The elected Members of the Advisory Board participate as individual contributors and not representatives of their organizations. Advisory Board participants use their best judgment to find the best solutions for the Web, not just for any particular network, technology, vendor, or user.