Digital Divide Analysis in the Italian Firms by Using Domain Names

This paper reports about a study to analyse the Internet diffusion in Italy by Italian firms, using domain names under the .it ccTLD as metric. The penetration rate calculated according to the number of companies 1 is computed for highly dissimilar geographical areas (regions). A concentration analysis was performed in order to discover whether the geographical distribution of the Internet is less concentrated with respect to both the number of companies present in Italy and income level, suggesting a diffusive effect. Regression analysis was carried out using social, economic and infrastructure indicators. Results show that a “digital divide” exists in terms of geographical distribution (i.e., in macroareas – Northern, Central, and Southern Italy and at the regional level). In future we are going to carry out a research in order to compare the number of domains registered to businesses with that of domains registered in the non-profit sector.