STFDOC-2

OFFICIAL LETTER TO THE EUROPEAN CONFERENCE FOR THE INFORMATION SOCIETY
"INTERNET AND WEB ACCESSABILITY"

November 7, 1999
by Vinton G. Cerf, Chairman, ISTF <vcerf@mci.com>



Date:    November 7, 1999
To:      European Ministerial conference for the Information Society
From:    Internet Society/Internet Societal Task Force
Subject: Internet and Web Accessibility

The Internet Societal Task Force (ISTF) was created in 1999 by the
Internet Society (ISOC) to operate in parallel with ISOC's Internet
Engineering Task Force and Internet Research Task Force. The
Internet Society is an organization of individuals, businesses
and institutions whose interest is in the continued evolution
and further spread of the Internet.

The participants in the ISTF are committed to the vision that
the Internet is for Everyone but they also realize that there
are many barriers to achieving that objective. One of the earliest
working groups of the task force is devoted to assessing ways to
make the Internet more accessible, including accessible Web design,
to people with disabilities or who face other limitations that
impede their access to the Internet and the services it supports.


The members of ISOC and the participants in the ISTF believe that
the Internet should be for everyone. To make it truly for everyone,
it must offer access to information and services for all. In that
spirit the Internet Societal Task Force of the Internet Society
fully and completely endorses the efforts of the Portuguese
Accessibility Special Interest Group to have Internet Accessibility
issues of all types, and in particular those of the World Wide
Web, included in the European Ministerial conference for the
Information Society.


Vinton Cerf
Chairman, ISTF
on behalf of its steering group and participants