Policy analysis and recommendations on Internet standards deployment

Internet standards involved in routing, browsing, e-mail security, as well as best practices for Domain Name System (DNS) aim at improving the interoperability, scalability, stability, and security of the Internet. This report focuses on the current status of adoption of this set of key Internet standards in the EU. It analyses the underlying issues for end-users and service providers and provides recommendations to accelerate their uptake. The report presents an overview of the adoption of key Internet standards from Q3 2022 to Q3 2024 across EU Member States to outline their trends. The observed adoption rates reveal noteworthy gaps that do not improve over time, particularly in specific modern e-mail communications security standards, DNS security extension standards, and IPv6. Our analysis of the several factors, processes and stakeholders involved in their deployment reveals several barriers of adoption for end-users and providers of services, as well as common issues across the different standards analysed. Two key issues identified are the cost and complexity for providers to implement some of the standards and the lack of incentives for providers to do so. To address these gaps we analyse incentives and regulations already implemented by EU Member States and other countries, and we propose a set of organisational, technical and policy recommendations to accelerate the deployment of key Internet standards.