Mark Nottingham
mnot@mnot.net
https://www.mnot.net/
linkedin profile
open source contributions
Summary
A contributor to the development of the Internet and the Web for more than 20 years, Mark’s work focuses on HTTP, privacy and security, performance, and metadata. While primarily active in the IETF and W3C as venues for protocol development, he also has a strong interest in Internet governance as a form of transnational regulation.
Selected Activities and Affiliations
- Director, World Wide Web Consortium (2022-)
- Member, Internet Architecture Board (IAB) (2017-2021)
- Member, W3C Technical Architecture Group (TAG) (2014-2017)
- Chair, IETF QUIC Working Group (2016-2020)
- Chair, IETF HTTP Working Group (2007-)
- Chair, W3C Web Services Addressing Working Group (2004-2006)
- Chair, IETF Web Intermediaries Working Group (2001-2002)
- Program Committee Lead, HTTP Workshop (2015-)
- Co-organiser, Showing of CITIZENFOUR to IETF participants, with video appearance by Edward Snowden (2015)
- Presenter, Strengthening the Internet Against Pervasive Monitoring (STRINT) Workshop (2014)
- Director, Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I)
- IETF Liaison to the W3C (2006-2020)
- Representative, W3C Advisory Committee (2000-2002, 2010-2011, 2013-)
Selected Publications
Requests for Comments
See also Mark’s IETF profile for additional RFCs and drafts in progress.
- Editor, RFC9110: HTTP Semantics
- Editor, RFC9111: HTTP Caching
- Editor, RFC9112: HTTP/1.1
- Author, RFC8890: The Internet is for End Users
- Author, RFC8615: Defining Well-Known URIs
- Author, RFC8288: Web Linking
- Author, RFC7838: Alternative Services for HTTP
- Author, RFC7807: Problem Details for HTTP APIs
- Author, RFC7320: URI Design and Ownership
- Author, RFC6585: Additional HTTP Status Codes
- Author, RFC6570: URI Template
- Author, RFC5861: HTTP Cache-Control Extensions for Stale Content
- Editor, RFC4287: The Atom Syndication Format
IAB Statements
- Editor, Avoiding Unintended Harm to Internet Infrastructure
- Editor, Comments on the Australian Assistance and Access Bill 2018
W3C TAG Findings
- Editor, Securing the Web
- Editor, Unsanctioned Web Tracking
Commentary, Interviews and Press Mentions
See also mnot’s blog.
- Moving Control to the Endpoints: Motivations, Challenges, and the Path Forward (APNIC Blog, 2019)
- Australia’s Snooper’s Charter: Experts React, and it ain’t pretty (The Register, 2018)
- How to Read an RFC (IETF Blog, 2018)
- Internet Protocols are Changing (APNIC Blog, 2017)
- Snowden Meets the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF Journal, 2015)
- Websites Can Probably Guess Your Identity with Three Basic Data Points (The Observer, 2015)
- Error 451 is the new HTTP code for online censorship (Wired UK, 2015)
Professional Experience
Cloudflare
Standards Lead (6/22–)
Just getting started…
Fastly
Senior Principal Engineer, Office of the CTO (8/17–5/22)
Responsible for development and execution of external collaboration strategy, encompassing technical standards, open source, and industry research.
Achievements include improving Content Delivery Network interoperability and shared functionality through the standardisation of common functions; assisting the Web’s transition to HTTP/3, and contributions to the continued viability of standards organisations as venues for the public good.
Also assisted in product definition by providing domain expertise in HTTP and other protocols.
Mozilla Corporation
Independant Contractor (5/17–8/17)
Reporting to the Firefox CTO. Defined a targeted standardisation strategy; improved standards coordination and communication by piloting the Mozilla Specification Positions repository.
Akamai Technologies
Principal Architect, Web Division (9/12–4/17)
Responsible for defining and leading Akamai’s standards participation strategy, primarily in the IETF and W3C. Served as an in-house expert on HTTP and the Web. Helped to grow Akamai’s IETF participation from one regular attendee to over ten.
Rackspace
Systems Architect, Subject Matter Expert (8/11–8/12)
Responsible for defining and executing Rackspace’s cloud standards strategy. Improved Rackspace and OpenStack HTTP APIs.
Yahoo!
Senior Principal Technical Yahoo! (1/06–8/11)
Defined internal standards for HTTP APIs for Yahoo!’s Media group (approximately 20 sites, including finance, movies and news). This work subsequently served as the basis for Yahoo!-wide standards.
Also served as a subject-matter expert on HTTP, assisting product groups in architecting, supporting and implementing services, evangelising its use both inside and outside of Yahoo!.
A major part of this was developing, maintaining and supporting Yahoo’s internal build of the Squid Web Cache, including feature development, such as two new invalidation protocols and stale-while-revalidate. This software was used both for the front end (e.g., Flickr, 1.8 billion+ hits/day) and back end (e.g., Sports, News, Mail, Frontpage) by more than 35 internal customers. Also assisted with road-mapping features for the newly open-sourced Apache Traffic Server.
Additionally, helped manage the company’s overall standards participation and strategy, representing it in the W3C Advisory Committee and elsewhere.
BEA Systems
Senior Principal Technologist, Office of the CTO (5/02–1/06)
Provided leadership in standards participation and input on the company’s overall technology strategy through development of Web services specifications, representation of the company to the industry (through conference presentations and standards committees), and by liaising with partners, customers and internal resources.
Akamai Technologies
Research Scientist, Standards and Protocols (9/99–3/02)
Was the company’s resident expert in HTTP, XML, Web services and other Web technologies.
A primary deliverable was the design of Akamai’s “metadata” system (also known as “ARLv3”), allowing control of distributed server behaviour through a configuration file as well as request and response attributes.
Participated in the development and edited the specification for Edge Side Includes - a platform for edge computing.
Merrill Lynch
Internet Project Manager (7/98–9/99)
Championed, designed and oversaw implementation of a worldwide enterprise content delivery network, wrote policy directives for architecture and deployment of caching Web proxies, and proactively diagnosed and remedied performance issues with internal Web-based research delivery system.
Was also responsible for Web development and support within the Australiasian region, working with management to develop a Intranet and Internet business plan. This included deploying and maintaining enterprise firewall systems for Internet and extranet access.
connect.com.au
Web Engineer (7/96–3/97)
Was the Webmaster for this ISP, responsible for design of corporate identity, packaging, sales and support materials in addition to Web design. Also assisted in the deployment of a large-scale Squid proxy cache cluster, and led a team to ship an Internet dialup client on CD-ROM.
La Trobe University, IT Services
Webmaster (12/95–7/96)
Was responsible for oversight of the University’s Web presence. This included building and maintaining University Web servers and Harvest caching proxies, developing University-wide policies for Internet use in consultation with legal counsel, and designing the University Web site (which won Best Tertiary Education Site at the 1996 Australian Internet Awards).
Also planned and presented Internet and Web training seminars to University staff.
Education
Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne
Graduate Diploma, Communications Law 2022
Studied law to better understand its impact upon and intersection with Internet governance. Coursework included Privacy Law, Competition in Digital Markets, Digital Trade, and Regulatory Policy and Practice.
Towson State University
BA, Interdisciplinary Studies 1994
Studied both fine art and journalistic photography, with additional coursework in graphic design, the philosophy of aesthetics, the physics of light, colour theory, and journalism.
Legal Status
Citizen of both the United States and Australia; resident in Australia.