mark nottingham

current projects

• Serving on the Internet Architecture Board
• Chairing the IETF HTTP Working Group
• Chairing the IETF AI Preferences Working Group
• Leading Cloudflare’s technical standards participation
• Advising the UK Competition and Markets Authority’s Digital Markets Unit
• Arranging the HTTP Workshop
• Learning about governance at the Australian Institute of Company Directors
• Testing HTTP resources with REDbot.org
• Discovering how caches work at cache-tests.fyi
• Making RFCs easier to find using rfc.fyi
• Collecting good bars at Cocktail Standards

See also my specs in progress, projects at Github and random code snippets.

writing and presentations

• Series: The Nature of Internet Standards
• RFC 9518: Centralization, Decentralization, and Internet Standards
• RFC 8890: The Internet is for End Users
• Caching Tutorial for Web authors and Webmasters
• RSS and Atom Feed Tutorial for content publishers and Webmasters
• An Opinionated Guide to Melbourne
• What to Expect from HTTP/2 2012; presented at Boeing, AirBnB, BBC, etc.
• What’s up with HTTP? 2008; presented at Bell Labs, Google, Yahoo!

See also other talks I’ve given and my academic papers.

snapshot

recent thoughts on my blog

• Using AI to Evaluate Internet Standards   Is AI a useful option for policymakers who want to evaluate open standards? Let's take a look.
• Apple’s Best Option: Decentralize iCloud   What can Apple do in the face of a UK order to weaken encryption worldwide? Decentralize iCloud, to start.
• Platform Advantages: Not Just Network Effects   A new book explores an intriguing idea: that there are core processes in some platforms that naturally tilt the table towards being implemented in a single company.
• On Opting Out of Copyright   The EU AI Act and emerging practice flip copyright’s default opt-in regime to an opt-out one. What effects is this likely to have on the balance of power between rights holders and reuse?
• What RSS Needs   Web feeds could be so much more if we put some effort into them. This post explores how we could start.
• Are Internet Standards Competitive or Collaborative?   It's often assumed that standards work is inherently competitive. This post examines why Internet standards are often more collaborative than competitive, and outlines some implications of this approach.
• Openness in Internet Standards: Necessary, but Insufficient   The phrase 'Open Standards' is widely used but not well-understood. Let's take a look at what openness in standards is, with a focus on whether and how it helps to legitimise the design and maintenance of the Internet.
• Consensus in Internet Standards   It’s common for voluntary technical standards developing organisations (SDOs such as the IETF and W3C) to make decisions by consensus, rather than (for example) voting. This post explores why we use consensus, what it is, how it works in Internet standards and when its use can become problematic.

more...