IIT justifies this action because of alleged "low efficiency and responsability" of the Naming Authority; on the other side, some large operator in the business cheered the move, since it would loose even the few present checks, leaving it all "to the market".

We agree that the present rules have to be updated. And indeed a committee among Registration Authority, Naming Authority and the Government had some meetings during last year. After the decision from IIT, the draft proposal which had been internally discussed was made public. It would assign the management of the ccTLD .it and other public network resources to a "Foundation" more or less like the Italian Public Television (RAI), with a Board made of five members (three of them appointed by the Minister of Communication), and a Technical Committee which will be composed by ten members from Ministries and other State-owned entities, four representatives of internet providers and only two elected by so-called "users' associations". Moreover, it is the Board who decides which associations would be able to choose those members.

Both proposals will thus "nationalize" the Italian network, bringing it under a stronger control from the Government and the top economic players, while excluding or minimizing in the technical administration the independent components of the network, like end users, professionals in the field, small operators. This will have a really negative impact on the market competition and the freedom of expression in the Net.

For all of these reasons:

• we state that the unilateral decision from IIT-CNR is neither timely nor legitimate, and we ask for its immediate withdrawal;
• we remind the international principle which states that the techical rules for the administration of the Net must be defined by entities which represent all the local Internet community, included internet providers/domain maintainers, Internet professionals, end users of the services, and Internet users at large. In this way, market competition and freedom of expression in the Net could be preserved;
• we ask that those principles will be put in practice by giving the management of the public resources of the Italian network to an entity, where the majority of representatives in the policy making body is made of people elected by the community, through an Assembly which will take the place of the present Naming Authority, with non-discriminatory membership and where there is the rule "one head, one vote";
• we ask all actors involved in the reform process for complete openness; all proposals must be presented and discussed publicly, and the procedures which the new organism will follow shall be open and accountable;
• we support the alternate formulation which has been prepared following those principles, and annexed to this petition.