Session
Netherlands Standardisation Forum, Ministry for the Interior and Kingdom Relations
Wout de Natris, Platform Internet Standards, WEOG
Wouter Kobes, Netherlands Standardisation Forum, WEOG
Annemieke Toersen, Netherlands Standardisation Forum, WEOG
Dorijn Boogaard, ECP, WEOG
Pieter van Kuilenburg, ECP, WEOG
Annemieke Toersen, Netherlands Standardisation Forum, WEOG, onsite
Daishi Kondo, University of Tokyo, Asia Pacific, online
Gilberto Zorello, NIC.BR, GRULAC, onsite
Wouter Kobes, Netherlands Standardisation Forum, WEOG, onsite
Alena Muravska, RIPE NCC, WEOG, onsite
12. Responsible Production and Consumption
16. Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
17. Partnerships for the Goals
Targets: The international community that Platform Internet Standards launches at the IGF focuses on strengthening digital cooperation between countries and organisations, to create a more secure digital environment and heightened trust for all internet users. The deployment of internet standards that the tool promotes empowers not only digital security but also leads to a more resilient infrastructure and promotes more peaceful and inclusive societies. The more secure the internet becomes for all its users, the more economic development on the internet will thrive, bringing the sustainable development goals closer to fruition.
The session will start with a general introduction of the community, its goals, and a summary of the preliminary meeting held with interested parties earlier this year. Then, the international community will be formally launched. Several (future) users of the internet standards test tool will tell about their experiences of the tool and its application and the results in their country or region. The session is concluded with a Q&A and the opportunity for new participants to sign up.
A recording of this session can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7yIxdqWxx0
Last October, Platform Internet Standards celebrated the 10 year anniversary of Internet.nl, an open source testing tool to check your website and e-mail provider on the compliance of modern internet standards. Having its origin in the Netherlands, the Internet.nl source code has since then been reused globally, including Brazil, Singapore, France and Denmark. The combination of public-private collaboration and a widely available, easy-to-use test tool has resulted in increased adoption of modern internet standards in these countries. For further increase in internet standards adoption, a new international initiative is announced.
To empower the digital security, Platform Internet Standards launches at the IGF 2025 an International User Community with six main goals:
- To foster and grow the level of support, interaction and coordination between the current users of the internet standards testing tool;
- To attract partners in new countries and regions;
- To support new partners in their adoption of the testing tool in the country/region as a community;
- To exchange knowledge and experience on measuring internet standard adoption, including methods to effectively improve adoption within countries;
- To gain better insight into each other’s successes and learn from challenges; and
- To gather new insights and ideas to contribute to the future development of the internet standards test tool.
The community is open for anyone that has interest in (re)using the internet standards test tool as well as for those who apply different ways of adoption measurement. It is the Platform’s firm belief that international collaboration, combined with regionalized and localized approaches, can improve the adoption of internet standards globally.
The IGF, as the global event that celebrates and underscores internet governance, is the ideal platform to launch this new governance platform. The new community aims for international digital cooperation, contributes actively to heighten the trust of using the internet and contributes to realising at least three of the SDGs, in other wording: Building Digital Governance Together.
Background:
- 10 year anniversary https://nl.internet.nl/article/terugblik-10-jarig-jubileum/
- Source code https://github.com/internetstandards/Internet.nl
Our session will feature both on-site and online speakers to maximize the interaction. The online moderator will ensure that questions asked in virtual chat are delivered to the on-site moderator or digital participants can ask their question using their microphone. In terms of online tools, a (to be determined) polling tool will be used to ask questions to the audience and to allow online participants to sign up for the community.
Report
Full session recording on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7yIxdqWxx0
Introduction to the international community for testing internet standards
Wout de Natris (international coordinator, internet.nl) explained how the idea for the launch of an international community of practice came about. At the launch of internet.nl in 2013, the Dutch Internet Standards Platform made this tooling open source and available for everyone to use. Both source code and API are used by other organizations internationally and there has been one-on-one interaction between the internet.nl-team and international users. However, broader collaboration between users of the tooling was lacking. Since there is merit in creating a broader cooperative body to exchange information on and experiences with the tooling and to perhaps coordinate on next steps in the future, the idea came about to launch an international community that is open to all who are interested in the development and adoption of modern internet standards.
Introduction to the internet.nl tooling
Wouter Kobes (Netherlands Standardisation Forum) introduced the internet.nl tooling, which helps to get insight into whether modern internet (security) standards are in place, to make organisations aware that these standards have to implemented, and – importantly – to give implementation guidance. A dashboard function is available for testing large number of domains and on a regular basis, creating reports a planned scanning.
The source code is available on an open source basis: https://en.internet.nl/copyright/. It has already been picked up in other countries, for example Brazil (top.nic.br), Denmark (sikkerpånettet.dk), Germany (https://internet-standards.de/), and by the European Commission (https://ec.europa.eu/internet-standards/).
On the importance of modern internet standards
Alena Muravska (RIPE NCC) shares her perspective on the importance of internet standards. As a regional internet registry, RIPE NCC’s primary task is registration: the allocation of IP addresses and autonomous system numbers.
Registration is one of two things that make the internet function: the other is standardisation. Open standards allow for interoperability and promote scalability and the creation of resilient networks. This in turn allows for the creation of new services that can be accessed worldwide. Open standards development relies on the participation on a broad spectrum of parties; the IETF plays an essential role in this process.
Policy makers show a growing interest in open internet standards and governments can play a key role in supporting open internet standard adoption, for example through national IPv6 roadmaps and the “apply or explain” approach on RPKI by the Dutch Standardisation Platform. At the same time, more political roadmaps without substantial involvement of the broader (technical) community typically do not work as well. On a European level, the NIS2-directive puts internet standards in the spotlight: while the directives on the deployment of modern internet standards have been phrased in a technology-neutral and flexible manner, this reflects governments interest in the development and implementation of modern internet standards.
The testing community can play a key role in monitoring the deployment of modern standards and in this way contribute to the overall quality of the internet structure. The community launched today allows for collaborative learning and collective efforts of organizations involved in testing internet standards.
Experiences with the tooling around the world
Gilberto Zorello (NIC.br, Brazil) shared his experiences with the internet.nl tooling. The Brazilian equivalent of internet.nl is called TOP (Teste Os Padrões; Test the Standards) and is part of the Safer Internet Program; the recommendations of internet.nl fully align with the objectives of this program. The TOP initiative started in December 2021 and is funded by NIC.br, which also works on dissemination across the country by organizing lectures, providing technical training on specific topics (for example RPKI and IPv6) and meetings with internet service providers. Planned actions include a competition rewarding companies that configure their website following TOPs recommendations, and the inclusion of internet standards in the national ICT monitoring.
Daishi Kondo (University of Tokyo, Japan) shared his research on the deployment of modern email standards (SPF, DKIM, DMARC). The research paper is available via https://tma.ifip.org/2025/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2025/06/tma2025_paper36.pdf. An important observation is that Japan does not have national policies on the use of modern internet standards, such as the “apply or explain” list that is used in the Netherlands. It is important for parties participating in the global internet standards testing community to be aware of such differences between countries.
Questions from the audience
Santosh Pandit (online) asked whether the community plans to support the journey towards post-quantum cryptography and its use at internet.nl?
Wout de Natris commented that this is sure to come up in the near future. Wouter Kobes added that this will be added in due time to internet.nl, when standards for this subject have been sufficiently developed.
A person from the audience on site asked whether there will be a task force of group for the collaboration on standards development between governments.
Wout de Natris replied that the idea behind the community right now is that all organisations with an interest on testing internet standards can join, including people from the technical community, government agencies and research institutions. There is a set of standards in the current program, but this will develop in the future. One of the goals of the community is to organise internation coordination on development.
Official launch of the international community
Wouter Kobes officially launched the international community, which focuses on strengthening digital cooperation between countries and organisations, to create a more secure digital environment and heightened trust for all internet users. The deployment of internet standards that the tool promotes empowers not only digital security but also leads to a more resilient infrastructure and promotes more peaceful and inclusive societies.
Organisations interested to join the international community can send an email to [email protected].
