IETF, W3C, etc.: de iure or de facto standards?

Question

I keep receiving contradictory information from both web resources and uni subjects: some people consider IETF's RFCs popular but actual de facto standards and then some consider IETF an official standarization organization thus capable of emitting de iure standards.

So, are IETF, W3C and similar actually official standardization entities? Would, for example, IETF's SIP protocol considered a de iure standard?

Answer 1

Standards are voluntary, unless there is a law that says that a specific standard must be used for specific products, services, procedures, etc. Even standards by official standardisation organisations are voluntary unless there is a law that enforces them.

What is an official standardisation organisation or not depends on the jurisdiction you are talking about. For example, in 1998 the European Commission published a Council Directive that declared CEN, CENELEC and ETSI as official standardisation bodies for the European Union. This had several consequences, e.g. that their standards can be referred to in European law. This is not the case for W3C recommendations or IETF RFCs.

This is why, for example, the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines needed to be integrated into European standard EN 301 549 published by ETSI, since an ETSI standard can be referenced in European law (e.g. the European Accessibility Act).