are developed by standards organizations—groups of interested and often competing parties chartered with the task of standardization—not technologies developed and declared to be a standard by a single individual or company. It is crucial to distinguish those specifications that are under development from the ones that already reached the final development status (in the case of W3C specifications, the highest maturity level). Accessibility There are methods for accessing the Web in alternative mediums and formats to facilitate use by individuals with disabilities. These disabilities may be visual, auditory, physical, speech-related, cognitive, neurological, or some combination. Accessibility features also help people with temporary disabilities, like a broken arm, or ageing users as their abilities change. The Web receives information as well as providing information and interacting with society. The World Wide Web Consortium claims that it is essential that the Web be accessible, so it can provide equal access and equal opportunity to people with disabilities. Tim Berners-Lee once noted, "The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect." Many countries regulate web accessibility as a requirement for websites. International co-operation in the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative led to simple guidelines that web content authors as well as software developers can use to make the Web accessible to persons who may or may not be using assistive technology. Internationalisation The W3C Internationalisation Activity assures that web technology works in all languages, scripts, and cultures. Beginning in 2004 or 2005, Unicode gained ground and eventually in December 2007 surpassed both ASCII and Western European as the Web's most frequently used character encoding. Originally allowed resources to be identified by URI in a subset of US-ASCII. allows more characters—any character in the Universal Character Set—and now a resource can be identified by IRI in any language. See also Electronic publishing Internet metaphors Internet security Lists of websites Streaming media Web development tools Web literacy References Further reading Brügger, Niels, ed, Web25: Histories from the first 25 years of the World Wide Web (Peter Lang, 2017). Niels Brügger, ed. Web History (2010) 362 pages; Historical perspective on the World Wide Web, including issues of culture, content, and preservation. Skau, H.O. (March 1990). "The World Wide Web and Health Information". New Devices. External links The first website Early archive of the first Web site Internet Statistics: Growth and Usage of the Web and the Internet