The Internet Society or ISOC is an international organization that promotes Internet use and access. It states that its mission is:
Its members are both individuals (for whom membership is currently free--membership is open to anyone), and also corporations, organizations, governments, and universities.
Many of the driving forces in the Internet arena, such as the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), were (and still remain) very informal organizations from a legal perspective. There was a growing need for financial support and organization structures. The Internet Society was incorporated as a non-profit educational organization.
Like many functions and organizations active in the Internet, growth and evolution have been so rapid that no single perspective gives an understanding of the Society. From one view, the ISOC is the parent corporation of the IETF; as such all IETF Request for Comments documents, including those RFCs which describe "Internet Standards", are copyrighted by ISOC (although freely available to anyone, including non-members, at no charge). From another perspective, the ISOC grew out of the IETF, to support those functions that require a corporate form rather than simply the ad-hoc approach of the IETF.
ISOC today is the parent company for the Public Interest Registry, which runs the .ORG top-level domain.
The ISOC used to sponsor an annual conference (the INET), along with various publications and training seminars.
The ISOC has joint offices in Virginia, United States and Geneva, Switzerland.
Internet Society | Internet Society | 인터넷 협회 | ISOC | Internet Society | Internet Society | ISOC | Internet Society | Internet Society | 互联网协会
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the
"Internet Society".
Home Page • arts • business • computers • games • health • hospitals • home • kids & teens • news • physicians • recreation• reference • regional • science • shopping • society • sports • world