diff --git a/specification/data-events.md b/specification/data-events.md
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..8b957249a54
--- /dev/null
+++ b/specification/data-events.md
@@ -0,0 +1,65 @@
+# Semantic conventions for events
+
+Event types are identified by the event name. Library and application implementors
+are free to define any event name that make sense with the exception of the
+following reserved names.
+
+## Reserved event names
+
+| Event name  | Notes and examples                                                 |
+| :---------- | :----------------------------------------------------------------- |
+| `"message"` | Event with the details of a single message within a span.          |
+
+## Message event attributes
+
+Each message sent/received within a span should be recorded as an event. In the
+case of synchronous RPC calls there will be one sent and one received event per
+span. In case of a stream span such as a gRPC stream, WebSocket or HTTP
+server-sent events, there could be multiple messages with each message recorded
+as an individual event.
+
+Event `"name"` MUST be `"message"`.
+
+Message events MUST be associated with a tracing span.
+
+| Attribute name | Notes and examples                     | Required? |
+| :------------- | :------------------------------------- | --------- |
+| `message.type` | Either `"SENT"` or `"RECEIVED"`.       | Yes |
+| `message.id`   | Unique identifier within a span and `message.type` for the individual message. Further specifications for common protocols are discussed below. | No |
+| `message.compressed_size` | Compressed size in bytes. | No |
+| `message.uncompressed_size` | Uncompressed size in bytes. | No |
+| `message.content` | The body or main contents of the message. If binary, then message should be Base64 encoded. | No |
+
+To conserve bandwith and/or storage, exporters MAY drop the `message.content`
+attribute if present. Logging-only exporters bundled with default OpenTelemetry
+SDKs SHOULD provide affordances for logging this information as it is highly
+useful during the early stages of developing a new application.
+
+### Representative message.id attribute values
+
+#### gRPC
+
+For [gRPC], `message.id` MUST be calculated as two different counters starting
+from `1`, the first for sent messages and the second for received messages.
+This way we guarantee that the values will be consistent between different
+implementations. Server streaming, client streaming and bidirectional streaming
+RPCs provided gRPC all guarantee message ordering so there should be no
+discrepencies between the sender and receiver spans.
+
+#### Server-Sent Events
+
+For [Server-Sent Events] included in the HTML5 specification, `message.id` MUST
+match the `id` field of an event if it does not contain U+0000 NULL. Otherwise,
+the attribute should not be populated. This is equivalent to what gets populated
+to the last event ID buffer of the `EventSource` object specified in the SSE
+specification.
+
+#### Java Message Service (JMS)
+
+For JMS, `message.id` SHOULD be set to the value of the `JMSMessageID`field
+exposed by [JMS Message]. This value uniquely identifies each message sent by
+a provider.
+
+[gRPC]: https://www.grpc.io/docs/guides/concepts/
+[Server-Sent Events]: https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/server-sent-events.html
+[JMS Message]: https://docs.oracle.com/javaee/7/api/javax/jms/Message.html
diff --git a/specification/data-semantic-conventions.md b/specification/data-semantic-conventions.md
index 48280a63bec..1375ee2305d 100644
--- a/specification/data-semantic-conventions.md
+++ b/specification/data-semantic-conventions.md
@@ -30,3 +30,4 @@ The following semantic conventions for spans are defined:
 * [Database](data-database.md): Spans for SQL and NoSQL client calls.
 * [RPC/RMI](data-rpc.md): Spans for remote procedure calls (e.g., gRPC).
 * [General](data-span-general.md): General semantic attributes that may be used in describing different kinds of operations.
+* [Event](data-events.md): Attributes for events.