The theory has nothing to do with TimBL's personal status. There is a
long history of voluntary trade associations making standards
affecting their industry, and in some cases governments making
compliance to these standards mandatory, without violation of
anti-trust or competition law.
IEEE offers guidance to members of standards activities here:
http://standards.ieee.org/develop/policies/antitrust.pdf
Yes, but the W3C's structure goes way beyond the IEEE. The IEEE is a
not-for-profit corporation chartered in New York State. The W3C is an
agreement between its core institutions that supports a membership
structure and employees.
