Internet Engineering Task Force

The Internet Engineering Task Force is an important element of the governance of the Internet, as it develops the communications standards and protocols that the the Internet work.

Wikipedia says: “The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) develops and promotes Internet standards, cooperating closely with the W3C and ISO/IEC standards bodies and dealing in particular with standards of the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP). It is an open standards organization, with no formal membership or membership requirements.”

The IETF is governed by the independent Internet Society. Potentially, the protocols developed by the IETF could be abused to limit or remove access to information, or create surveillance opportunities, so its independence from government is particularly important.