The Internet Society (ISOC) is a global non-profit advocacy organization founded in January 1992 by internet pioneers Vint Cerf, Bob Kahn, and Lyman Chapin to promote the open development, evolution, and use of the internet for the benefit of all people. The organization maintains offices in Reston, Virginia and Geneva, Switzerland, with regional bureaus and chapters worldwide. As of July 2020, ISOC has more than 70,000 individual members globally.
ISOC serves as the organizational home of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the internet's premier technical standards body. This relationship dates to ISOC's founding, as one principal rationale was providing an institutional home and financial support for internet standards processes. In August 2018, ISOC reorganized the IETF more formally as the IETF Administration LLC (IETF LLC), which continues to be closely associated with and significantly funded by ISOC. The organization is governed by a Board of Trustees with 13 voting members reflecting a multistakeholder approach.
Key ISOC initiatives include creating the Public Interest Registry (PIR) in 2002 to manage the .org domain registry, launching the Internet Hall of Fame, and organizing World IPv6 Day (June 8, 2011) and World IPv6 Launch (June 6, 2012) to advance IPv6 deployment. The organization leads discussions on internet standards, policy, and education while supporting work on internet governance to ensure a sustainable and trustworthy infrastructure.