MIME and the Web

This document describes some of the ways in which parts of the MIME system, originally designed for electronic mail, have been used in the Web, and some of the ways in which those uses have resulted in difficulties. Given this background and justification, this document then goes on to outline requirements for changes to MIME registries and practices for their use within W3C and IETF, in order to address those difficulties. Within IETF, a companion Best Current Practice document will be developed to specifically make some changes to the Internet Media Types and Charset registries.