The W3C Recommendation Process
The W3C is the body that issues standards for the World Wide Web. As a matter of fact, the W3C has no formal power as a standards body. In fact, SGML is not a W3C Recommendation: It is an ISO standard.
That is why the standard documents that are formally published by the W3C are called Recommendations. They are adopted as standards by the Web community through a consensus. That is, manufacturers, authors, and users agree to abide by the recommendations of the W3C, even though none are formally required to do so.
Note
There are numerous examples of deviations from W3C standards. The best examples are browser extensions to HTML, such as the dreaded <BLINK> tag. Both Microsoft and Netscape have strayed from W3C recommendations ...
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