A standard that allows binary data to be published and read on the Internet. The header of a file with binary data contains the MIME type of the data; this informs client programs (Web browsers and mail packages, for instance) that they will need to handle the data in a different way than they handle straight text. For example, the header of a Web document containing a JPEG graphic contains the MIME type specific to the JPEG file format. This allows a browser to display the file with its JPEG viewer, if one is present.