Résumé

Governance Leadership Experience Education Activities Publications

Mark Nottingham GDipCommLaw MAICD
South Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

https://mnot.net/
linkedin profile
open source contributions

Summary

Mark Nottingham has contributed to the design and maintenance of core Internet technologies for more than twenty-five years, focusing on HTTP, URLs, RSS/Atom, and QUIC. He has written more than thirty IETF RFCs and W3C Recommendations.

His current interests are at the intersection of technical standards and legal regulation, with a goal of preserving the value of the Internet to the people who use it through reduction in concentrations of power, increases in the choices available to them, and improvements in interoperability.

Governance Roles

World Wide Web Consortium

Director (October 2022–September 2024)

Elected by the membership to serve on the first Board of Directors for W3C Inc., which saw the organisation transition from a multi-institution agreement to a single legal entity.

Chair of the Governance and Board Development committees. Drove negotiation of key partner contracts, core Board policies, and a Bylaws revision. Helped to select a new CEO. Coordinated onboarding of new Directors, efforts to improve and track Board diversity and skills, and instituted Board training.

Secretary of the Corporation (January 2023–November 2024)

Managed corporate records and served as interface between the Board and legal counsel. Helped to establish a Board culture focused on risk and strategy, and arranged professional training for the Board.

Web Services Interoperability Organization

Director (2002-2006)

Served on the Board of Directors of this industry consortium focused on improving the interoperability of Web Services.

Governance Credentials

Technical Leadership Roles

Internet Architecture Board

Member (2017-2021, 2025-)

Selected to “provide long-range technical direction for Internet development, ensuring the Internet continues to grow and evolve as a platform for global communication and innovation.”

Technical activities included:

W3C Technical Architecture Group

Member (2014-2017)

Elected by the W3C membership to “document the architecture of the World Wide Web and assist the community in interpreting it.” Included working with various stakeholders to assure architectural alignment, reviewing specifications, and documenting architectural positions and findings, such as that on Unsanctioned Web Tracking.

Working Group Chair Roles

Professional Experience

UK Competition and Markets Authority

Digital Expert (Contractor) (February 2023–January 2026)

Appointed as a “leader from […] industry brought in to advise the CMA as it prepares for new powers to oversee digital markets.”

Cloudflare

Standards Lead (June 2022–)

Responsible for coordinating and supporting technical standards efforts across the company, and serve as an internal expert on HTTP and related protocols.

Fastly

Senior Principal Engineer, Office of the CTO (August 2017–May 2022)

Responsible for development and execution of external collaboration strategy, encompassing technical standards, open source, and industry research. Achievements included improving Content Delivery Network interoperability through the standardisation of common functions; assisting the Web’s transition to HTTP/3. Also assisted product definition by providing domain expertise in HTTP and other protocols.

Mozilla Corporation

Independent Contractor (May 2017–August 2017)

Retained by the Firefox CTO to define a targeted standardisation strategy and improve standards coordination and communication. This work resulted in the launch of the Mozilla Specification Positions repository, which documents the company’s stance on standards proposals, both improving internal coordination and improving external communication.

Akamai Technologies

Principal Architect, Web Division (September 2012–April 2017)

Led the HTTP Working Group in shipping HTTP/2. Additionally, 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 and helped to grow Akamai’s IETF participation from one regular attendee to over ten.

Rackspace

Systems Architect, Subject Matter Expert (August 2011–August 2012)

Hired to develop a cloud standarisation strategy. Recommended an open-source-led strategy.

Yahoo!

Senior Principal Technical Yahoo! (January 2006–August 2011)

Helped manage the company’s overall standards participation and strategy, representing it in the W3C Advisory Committee and elsewhere.

Defined internal standards for HTTP APIs for Yahoo!’s Media group, which subsequently served as the basis for Yahoo!-wide standards. Acted as a subject-matter expert on HTTP, assisting product groups in architecting, supporting and implementing services, and evangelising its use internally and externally. This included developing and supporting Yahoo!’s internal build of the Squid Web Cache, including feature development, such as two new invalidation protocols and stale-while-revalidate.

BEA Systems

Senior Principal Technologist, Office of the CTO (May 2002–January 2006)

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 (September 1999–March 2002)

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. Also participated in standards work, including development of Edge Side Includes and the Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P).

Education

HarvardX

CopyrightX (February 2025–May 2025)

Twelve week certificate in copyright law.

Melbourne Law School

Graduate Diploma in Communications Law (February 2020–December 2022)

Studies included Privacy Law, Competition in Digital Markets, Digital Trade, and Regulatory Policy and Practice.

Towson State University

BA, Interdisciplinary Studies (September 1989–May 1994)

A self-designed program in fine art photography, journalism, physics of light, philosophy of aesthetics, and anything else conceivably linked to photography.

Selected Activities

Selected Publications

Requests for Comments

See also my IETF profile for additional RFCs and drafts in progress.

IAB Statements and W3C TAG Findings

Commentary, Interviews and Press Mentions

See also my blog.

“The ‘metaverse’ is a marketing confection with no basis in reality as of yet. Its proponents are focused on capturing a future market, not building new shared space without any single owner.” – in The Metaverse in 2024, Pew Research

Citizen of both the United States and Australia, resident in Australia.

about blog home