Between public and private - the nature of today’s standards

The standards developed within the formal, traditional standard developing organisations (SDOs) were regarded by economists as public goods, i.e. goods whose benefits are available to everyone, and from which no one can be excluded and no one can fully appropriate the benefits (David & Shurmer, 1996; Kindleberger, 1983). However, with the advent of private consortia during the last decades, vested interest and commercial considerations have replaced the technocrat idealism that characterized SDOs, and the shared principles underlining the procedures of SDOs due process, fairness and transparency, consensus, and voluntarism – have been adapted to the needs of the specific community of interests that private consortia serve (Hawkins, 1999). As a result, it is argued in the literature that standards become quasi-public goods, somewhere in between the public and the private dichotomy (Antonelli, 1994).