GOVERNANCE
Accountability infrastructure
cannot be owned by anyone.
ARIA is governed by a nonprofit foundation with a constitutional anti-capture clause. The protocol is a public good. The infrastructure is a business. Nobody owns the standard. Everybody can build on it.
This is the same model as Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation — adapted for open standards in the age of AI agents.
TWO ENTITIES. ONE MISSION.
The standard and the business are structurally separated. The Foundation owns the protocol. The operator builds the infrastructure. Revenue funds development. Neither can capture the other.
TrustLayer Foundation A.C.
Owns the ARIA protocol, specification, and standard. Constituted March 20, 2026 as a Mexican Asociación Civil. CC-BY-4.0 docs. Apache 2.0 code. Public RFC process. Anti-capture clause in the founding charter.
Also stewards: UCDM Protocol (Universal Commerce Data Model).
TUNO Labs SAPI de CV
Operates the ARIA registry, API, platform, and SDK under a Services Agreement from TLF. Co-founded by Aaron Grego, Ivan Moreno Mendoza, and Carlos Grego Samra. Sibling entity — not a subsidiary. Revenue funds protocol development.
Built by the team behind Punto 2012 — ICANN-contracted gTLD registry (101K+ domains, 14 years).
CONSEJO DIRECTIVO — ESTABLISHED
Four members serving renewable three-year terms. Quorum: 3 of 4. Supermajority (3 of 4) required for bylaws changes, anti-capture modifications, and licensing changes.
ANTI-CAPTURE. CONSTITUTIONAL.
These provisions are in TLF's founding charter. They cannot be modified without a supermajority vote plus 90-day public notice.
No single-entity control
No single entity can obtain control of the specification, the revocation registry, a majority of TSC seats, or the licensing terms.
IP lock
Once published, a specification's license cannot be changed to a more restrictive license. This clause survives dissolution.
Fork protection
If the Foundation is dissolved or acquired, all published specifications automatically become available under the most permissive license ever used.
Registry independence
The specification includes sufficient detail for any implementer to build a conformant registry. TLF retains the right to license multiple operators.
No commercial gating
No specification, test suite, or technical deliverable is restricted to paying members.
Accountability infrastructure cannot be owned by anyone. It must belong to everyone.
WHAT'S COMING. Q3 2026.
The governance structure is designed but not yet fully operational.
Technical Steering Committee
Seven members. Three civil society/academia, two industry, one government, one developing-nation. Apache PMC + IETF rough consensus model.
Working Groups
Community-driven, GitHub RFC process. Open participation. Initial groups: ARIA Protocol (core spec), Security (crypto, threat modeling).
Advisory Board
AI infrastructure, identity standards, internet governance. 4-6 meetings/year. 10-15 hours/quarter. Remote-first.
ANIMATING PRINCIPLES
Human accountability
No standard published by TLF enables autonomous operation without traceable human authorization.
Openness
All specifications, processes, meeting records, and decisions are publicly accessible. No secret working groups.
Standards integration
TLF seeks to complement and interoperate with existing standards (IETF, W3C, NIST, ISO) rather than create competing alternatives.
Nonprofit stewardship
The Foundation is not operated for the private benefit of any individual or commercial interest.
STANDARDS ENGAGEMENT
LICENSING
All documentation, specifications, and non-code deliverables. Share, adapt, attribute.
All code, SDKs, reference implementations, and test suites. Build anything.
Contributions via Developer Certificate of Origin (DCO). Trademarks held by TLF.
GOVERNANCE DNA: Mozilla Foundation (dual entity) · Apache Software Foundation (meritocracy) · OpenID Foundation (IPR policy) · Trust over IP Foundation (metamodel) · IETF (rough consensus, RFC 7282)
The standard belongs to its community.
Contribute code, review the spec, join a working group, or help shape the governance. Every path is open.