In this new episode, we are pleased to welcome Pierre Bonis, CEO of Afnic.
Who are you and what do you do?
“Hello everyone. I am Pierre Bonis, Director General of Afnic, the French association for Internet naming in cooperation. an open association with today a little more than a hundred members, which has a major function which is to be the operator of the “.fr” that everyone knows, but which also has another function which is to be a point of reference and expertise, on the underlying technologies of the Internet, the protocols that make the Internet work by developing this expertise, to participate in international discussions on Internet governance with our members and to report to the French Internet community.”
In your opinion, what are the three major challenges facing the internet today?
“The first issue is the issue of trust. The Internet cannot function without trust and the Internet must also create trust and recognition between these different users. The Internet is a link that creates trust.
Then, sustainability, sustainability in the sense that it is very strongly understood today, in the face of the climate emergency, a sober Internet that can propose solutions to limit global warming. But also a sustainable internet in the sense that it is resilient and that it is universal and that it is not archipelized, which, in a context today quite warlike, becomes an emergency. It is essential to keep the universal character of the Internet.
And finally an internet accessible to everyone according to their abilities, possibly according to these handicaps, but also according to their geographical location. It should be remembered that more than a billion human beings are victims of a digital divide, infrastructures do not have access to the Internet today. This accessibility is both in the web and in the infrastructures.”
How do you act for a Better Web?
“For Afnic, trust is first and foremost trust in the “.fr”. For years, we have been building a “.fr”, which is a zone of trust using 2 levers. First, the protection of holders and users by protecting their personal data. “;fr” was the first extension in the world to anonymize the personal data of domain name holders by default.
The other aspect is the fight against abuse, particularly technical abuse, phishing, farming and spamming, which must not have a place in le.fr. This is why Afnic is taking determined action to combat these abuses.
For us, at Afnic, sustainability is first and foremost the resilience and universality of the internet. For the internet to be sustainable, it must work from one end of the planet to the other. But also the Internet must be sober and we must participate in an effort to better understand the carbon footprint of the Internet, and in particular these basic protocols such as the DNS. This is what we are working on at Afnic, by evaluating the carbon footprint of a unit that is the DNS query and is the basic unit of Internet use.
Finally, with regard to accessibility for all, the fight against the digital divide in particular, it is first and foremost a question of making the Internet accessible both to produce on the Internet and to access it. For the production of content, we work and support more than 20,000 VSEs / SMEs per year so that they make their digital transition and gain autonomy in the production of content to Internet users.
But we must also support the populations, the citizens, the citizens who are far from the Internet and digital for many reasons. And that’s fighting the digital divide. This is why Afnic has created the Afnic Foundation for Digital Solidarity, which is financed by the benefit of the “.fr” and which finances to the tune of about 1.5 million euros per year, several dozen projects in the territories aimed at bringing together populations far from digital technology and enabling them to appropriate the uses of the Internet today.
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