Page 67 - Proceedings of the 2017 ITU Kaleidoscope

Challenges for a data-driven society

RFCs. Patent policy is typically expected to represent the Bluetooth SIG is a non-for profit and non-stock corporation
consensus of the IETF community, and is subject to public dedicated to the development of specifications for wireless
review and approval by the IESG. Decisions of Working connectivity solutions and low-power wireless connectivity
Group chair can be appealed to the Area Director, and technologies. The membership of the Bluetooth SIG can only
subsequently to the IESG. IAB serves as the final appeal be acquired by entities, and is divided in three classes:
board for the decisions of the IESG and IAOC. Promoters, Associate Members and Adopter Members.
Being the only voting members, Promotors and are entitled

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The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to appoint a representative to the Board of Directors, the
W3C is a non-for-profit organization of around 480 members main governing body of the consortium. Promoter
that defines standards and guidelines for Web design and membership is granted upon the unanimous consent of other
Web applications, which ensure functionality and Promoters. Adopter Members may implement specifications
accessibility of the web on a global scale. Unlike formal and participate in certain committees of the Bluetooth SIG.
SDOs, W3C represents a non-hierarchical cooperation Adopter Members can also be promoted to Associate
between universities and research facilities. The consortium Membership, which grants them right to participate in
is managed by a joint agreement among four “host” working groups and access relevant information. In total,
institutions (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Bluetooth SIG has more than 400 members at the moment of
European Research Consortium for Informatics and writing.
Mathematics, Keio University and Beihang University). The Board of Directors reviews membership applications,
W3C standards are defined in the Working Groups of the adopts final versions of all Bluetooth specifications, oversees
W3C community and, similarly to the IETF, published in the qualification and testing programs and establishes
form of Recommendations. committees and working groups, whose activities it also can
The membership of W3C is open only to organizations, but veto. The Board of Directors is composed of one
all members enjoy equal benefits, irrespective of their nature, representative appointed by each Promoter for unlimited
orchestration or incorporation. Participation of general time and, subject to the unanimous approval of the
public in W3C activities is possible through Community and Promoters, representatives of up to four Associate Member
Business Groups, which unlike Working Groups, are open to Directors, appointed for a two-years term. All other members
non-members; likewise, interested parties may take part in may participate at the meetings of the Board of Directors as
specifications reviews and tests and provide implementation observers. Guidelines established by the Board of Directors
feedback. Individuals may join W3C forum either as serve as default procedural rules, but working groups may
Affiliate Members or as “invited experts” upon the approval draft their own procedures in their charters. Bylaws of
by the Working Group Chair and the Team, the latter Bluetooth SIG may only be amended by unanimous approval
comprised of the Director, CEO and W3C paid staff and of the Promoters. The consortium does not provide any
fellows. As non-members, the four host organizations are appeal mechanism: disputes are resolved exclusively by the
subject to a different set of privileges and obligations, and state and federal courts of New York.
are entitled to amend the Member Agreement.
The main governing body is the Advisory Committee, 3.2. Findings and Explanations
comprised of all W3C Members. It reviews proposals for
working groups’ charters, recommendations and process As expected, all five SDOs are dominated by industry and
documents, and elects the Advisory Board and Technical private sector representatives. Depending on the SDO,
Architecture Group (TAG) members. In turn, the Advisory governments and public society enjoy a certain level of
Board deals with legal and management matters, oversees participation, either by directly contributing to the activities
the evolution of the standard document and drafts technical of Working Groups (ETSI, IEEE-SA, IETF), or by engaging
rules and procedures, which in turn require approval of all in public review processes (IEEE-SA, W3C). Working and
W3C members. The TAG deals with technical issues around Study Groups of SDOs have a discretion to adopt their own
Web architecture and coordinating cross-technology procedures and charters, as long as those do not contradict
developments within and outside W3C. Members who the rules of the SDO under which they operate. Due account
disagree with decisions of the Working Group (including must be taken of the fact that each of the discussed SDOs
those as the result of a vote), should file a formal objection administers different types of standards and operates in a
with the Working Group’s Chair. Appeals are typically different setting, and thus they can only be compared to a
handled by the Advisory Board and the TAG. Matters that very limited extent.
cannot be resolved through the dialogue or internal appeals Despite these constraints, the findings of this paper, although
procedure are settled by arbitration tribunals. still very preliminary, illustrate that the governance of
“consensus-based standardization” is not always build on
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Bluetooth Special Interest Group (Bluetooth SIG) consensus between all stakeholders. For instance, in a
complex web of governing bodies in the IEEE and its

10 World Wide Web Consortium Process Document (March 2017) 11 Bylaws of Bluetooth SIG, Inc. (June 2015) retrieved from
retrieved from https://www.w3.org/2017/Process-20170301/. https://www.bluetooth.com/membership-working-
groups/membership-types-levels/membership-agreements.

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