What is the meaning of “vnd” in MIME types?

Question

Reading up on content providers, I keep wondering why both the category and type of Android MIME types are prefixed with vnd. For example:

vnd.android.cursor.dir/vnd.<something>
vnd.android.cursor.item/vnd.<something>

Anyone know what this stands for and what the point is?

Answer 1

vnd indicates vendor-specific MIME types, which means they are MIME types that were introduced by corporate bodies rather than e.g. an Internet consortium.

Answer 2

vnd = vendor.

See Wikipedia - Media type:

Types or subtypes that begin with x- are nonstandard^[2] (they are not registered with IANA). Subtypes that begin with vnd. are vendor-specific; subtypes in the personal or vanity tree begin with prs..^[3]