"The Internet's governing technical body quietly gave its stamp
of approval Thursday to a group intent on creating an open standard
for instant messaging.
"The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the group that sets
the technical standards for the Internet, gave the go-ahead to the
creators of open-source instant-messaging application Jabber to
create a working group based on that technology. These such groups
plan the specific implementations of the technologies that make up
the Internet..."