Blog

On Sunday, 17 May, marks Internet Day, a date that invites reflection on the profound impact the global network has on everyday life, social structures and economic dynamism. Since the registration of the first national domain in 1991, Portugal’s technological landscape has undergone radical changes, evolving from an ecosystem restricted to academic circles into critical infrastructure that has recently surpassed the historic milestone of two million registered addresses.

However, this rapid expansion has been accompanied by geopolitical, cyber and social challenges that require careful and coordinated analysis among the various players in the sector.

In this interview, Luisa Ribeiro Lopes, president of .PT, analyses the path of the internet in Portugal and reflects on the real risks of fragmentation in the global digital space. The conversation addresses inequalities in digital literacy among the Portuguese population — which threaten social cohesion and leave more vulnerable groups exposed to fraud — as well as the barriers that micro and small businesses face in the process of technological modernisation. The head of the organisation that manages Portugal’s domain also highlights how .pt acts as a seal of trust and security, essential for the internationalisation of the national economy in today’s increasingly complex global environment.

I have had the privilege of closely following the evolution of this sector for quite some time. The first domain with the .pt extension was registered in 1991, at a time when the internet was a reality confined to academic and scientific circles. Later, we witnessed the phenomenon of the year 2000, a true period of expansion in which every organisation sought to secure a place in the virtual space, although the tools for creating web pages were much more complex and rudimentary than they are today.

Over the years, the domain industry itself has changed profoundly. Today, the priority is no longer only to attract new registrations, but also to maintain and secure existing addresses, ensuring that they operate on a fully trusted infrastructure. Today’s world is radically different from the one in which the network was born. Technology is no longer a tool accessible to a restricted group of privileged people; it must be seen as an essential public good that should serve everyone, without exception.

It is impossible not to share a certain sense of frustration. The internet’s initial promise centred on the democratisation of knowledge and the reduction of social inequalities. However, what we have seen, especially in more recent years, is that technology has advanced much faster than mechanisms of democratic regulation and social justice. In many cases, it has become an accelerator of economic inequalities and a vehicle for spreading disinformation on a global scale.

We feel that same frustration when we look at the targets of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and realise that the world is unlikely to meet the commitments it has made in the fight against poverty and structural injustice.

Despite these warning signs, I remain firmly optimistic about the future. A strong awareness is beginning to emerge, especially in Europe, that technology is not neutral and that it can jeopardise fundamental human rights if left without any form of ethical framework. We must fight to ensure that technological development responds to a humanist purpose and is not driven exclusively by commercial imperatives.

Which brings us to the importance of digital sovereignty.

Alongside the challenges of skills development and economic stability, Portugal and Europe face the crucial issue of digital sovereignty. The excessive dependence that our continent shows on major external geopolitical and technological blocs must urgently be reversed. We have quality infrastructure and highly qualified human talent; what we now need is the initiative to develop our own technological solutions, adapted to our cultural and social values.

This does not mean defending isolation or creating artificial barriers on the network, since the internet is global by nature. Rather, it means that we cannot give up protecting our citizens’ personal data, nor can we allow strategic information to remain under the control of foreign platforms that, at any moment, may adopt guidelines that run counter to our democratic principles. There is still much to be done, but the necessary knowledge and political will exist to reverse this course and put technology at the service of a fairer society.

When we travel to certain countries outside the Western sphere, we immediately realise that we do not have access to the same services and freedoms that shape our daily lives. Therefore, internet fragmentation is a real and urgent risk. The open, free, secure and democratic use of the network, in line with the way it was originally conceived, is seriously threatened. It is up to all of us who still defend these fundamental values and who have the ability to intervene to make our voices heard. All domain management organisations have something to say, .pt has something to say, and we, as citizens within civil society, also have that duty.

There is an Internet Governance Forum that works very intensively on these matters at a global level. Practically every country is represented there, bringing together academia, the technical community, governments, associations and young people. We must fight hard to keep the internet faithful to its original matrix, which should be a space for global sharing. That is what I believe in, and that is the outcome we must continue to fight for relentlessly.

I do not see a significant difference between the Portuguese reality and that of other European countries. We are part of the Western sphere, a bloc where these values of freedom still constitute the rule. However, it is important to recognise that the Western space itself now faces its own temptations. If we look at the situation in Portugal, we know that the major platforms and the main telecommunications operators that manage the networks are, for the most part, not entirely Portuguese-owned. As such, the economic temptation to channel traffic towards certain areas rather than others, to filter content, or to distort the neutral nature of the digital space, is also felt here.

Despite these pressures, I believe that our technical infrastructure, our operators and the public in general remain strongly committed to defending a free, open internet available to everyone. The picture changes when we stop talking about infrastructure and start analysing content, citizens’ literacy and individuals’ ability to distinguish what is true from what is false. The manipulation we see online today is immense. We all know that what appears on our screens when we interact with the digital world is not accidental. Content appears deliberately because there are algorithms designed to lead us towards certain topics, enclosing us in bubbles where we consume only what we are used to seeing and ignore everything else. The weakening of critical thinking is a problem across the entire world, and Portugal is no exception. In our case, the situation is aggravated by a gap I often mention: the lack of widespread digital skills among the population.

Today, digital literacy is a mandatory requirement for the full exercise of citizenship. It is no longer enough to know how to read and write in the traditional sense; this additional set of technological skills is indispensable. Although our young people show very positive indicators of digital literacy, even placing above the European average, our society as a whole is profoundly unequal. And these social inequalities are directly replicated in the digital environment. We cannot expect a perfect virtual reality when the real social structure is marked by deep disparities and significant demographic ageing.

The statistics show that, in the 65-to-74 age group, the level of digital skills in Portugal is far below the European average. If we look at sectors of the population with lower levels of schooling or fewer educational qualifications, we find that only 23 percent have digital skills considered basic, which represents a worrying civilisational delay. When we think of rural areas in the interior of the country, older people, or women in certain vulnerable contexts, the gap compared with European standards is enormous. It is urgent to channel efforts towards building the skills of these more fragile groups.

Without tools for understanding and without digital literacy, these people will be the first to be manipulated by waves of disinformation and will be exposed to online scams and fraud. The exercise of democracy today takes place, to a large extent, within the digital ecosystem. If citizens cannot distinguish a real news story from a fabricated falsehood, the democratic process becomes fragile and manipulation becomes an easy objective to achieve.

I do not consider it a lost cause at all, but it is undoubtedly a complex war with multiple open fronts. It is a battle in which we have an obligation to invest all available resources. Looking back, I am somewhat critical of the path the country has taken. An absolutely extraordinary investment has been made in the development of technological infrastructure and in the digital transition of public services. However, the same energy and the same volume of resources were not applied to directly training people.

The digital world is advancing at breakneck speed and, with the introduction of artificial intelligence, that acceleration has become even more aggressive. The practical result is that, if we do not keep pace with this through human training, we will also accelerate the gap in social inequalities. If effective public policies are not implemented and directed towards practical execution, designed to give skills to those in situations of exclusion, Portuguese society will face serious problems of internal cohesion. The success of the digital transition cannot be measured solely by the sophistication of networks or government portals; if attention is focused exclusively on infrastructure, the overall project will fail because it will leave a significant part of the population behind.

Listening to these words, one gets the sense that .pt’s work invariably comes up against the lack of basic technological foundations among the population and among small-business leaders.

That is entirely true. And the explanation lies in the fact that digital technology has accelerated at a pace far beyond society’s cultural capacity to adapt. We do not see this phenomenon among younger generations, although with young people there is another type of work to be done, focused on safety, the conscious use of algorithms and the challenge of turning them into creators of technology rather than mere passive consumers. But when we look at the population as a whole, we realise that everything always comes down to the human factor. Companies and institutions are made of people, and mindsets take time to change.

That is why I consider it essential that .pt, in addition to managing critical communications infrastructure, assumes this social role of intervention in the community. Limiting our action to the technical side would mean ignoring the fact that technology only fulfils its function if it is associated with a humanist purpose. That purpose should be to improve citizens’ lives, enabling them to exercise their rights of citizenship with full freedom and security. There are countless digital platforms on the market that bring no perceptible benefit to everyday life if the user does not have the necessary discernment to operate them correctly and critically.

.PT does not complain of a lack of financial resources to fulfil this mission. We are a non-profit association and, under our statutes, all revenue from domain registration is fully reinvested for the benefit of Portugal’s internet community. Of course, we make substantial investments in modernising our own technical infrastructure, which must remain highly secure, resilient and immune to failure. We are constantly subject to highly sophisticated cyberattacks; they will not cease to exist, but our duty is to ensure that preventive action stops them from causing negative impacts or incidents that jeopardise the stability of national networks.

Once this technical side is fulfilled, we direct a substantial share of our budget towards social responsibility and skills development projects. We develop programmes with schools to train the generations that will create companies tomorrow, encouraging them from the outset to choose the identity and security of a .pt domain. At the same time, we seek to bring back citizens who are excluded from the technological environment. This is not just philanthropy; there is also an underlying strategic vision. If we can raise the population’s digital skills, we will have more people prepared to create online projects, register their own domains and use professional email tools.

.pt is not intended exclusively for the corporate world. It is an extension open to personal projects, associative causes and individuals who want to build their own protected space for communication on the internet. Working with so many partner organisations serves the broader goal of building an inclusive internet. When the global network was designed by its pioneers — the men and women who created these communication protocols — the original vision was to create an open, democratic space accessible to all humanity, designed to bring societies closer together rather than accentuate existing divisions.

The greatest difficulties are essentially related to the lack of skills among those who work in companies and, in particular, among those responsible for their day-to-day management. The overwhelming majority of Portuguese entrepreneurs have already realised that having an active presence on the internet is vital for business survival. We witness this awareness through the various programmes we run on the ground. The protocol we signed with IAPMEI is precisely intended to accelerate the digitalisation of companies. We have travelled across the country in close collaboration with business associations to bring more businesses into the online environment, providing them with the skills needed to carry out this transition safely.

However, we are faced with a very particular reality: most of our business fabric consists of micro and small companies, family structures where teams are small and day-to-day operational priorities absorb all available time. If, on the other side, there is no one with the minimum preparation to understand digital tools and manage change, the migration process stagnates. In the current market context, a company that does not ensure a structured digital presence risks becoming invisible. For all practical purposes, being offline is equivalent to not existing.

Building the skills of the entire ecosystem is one of the absolute priorities of our work, with small and medium-sized enterprises receiving very special attention. It is precisely in this sector that the impact of digitalisation can be most transformative, but it is also where the greatest barriers to entry are found. One of the programmes we are developing with great momentum is the Digital Domain Roadshow, created in close partnership with IAPMEI. In this roadshow, we address very concrete and practical topics: we explain how to build a functional online store, how to use social networks to boost sales, how to make the business structure more cybersecure, and how to make the best use of the potential of the national domain.

At the same time, we have the Ponto Digital platform, which functions as a major aggregator of resources, useful tools and training courses aimed at digital transformation. This space is accessible to any person or company, regardless of where in the country they are located. And because we cannot neglect the future, we develop programmes aimed at younger people, such as Sitestar.pt and Apps for Good, which actively promote digital literacy directly in the school environment. Tomorrow’s entrepreneurs and professionals are in classrooms today, and we are convinced that deep skills development must begin precisely at these early ages.

Ultimately, entrepreneurs recognise the need to take that leap, but they need close support to make it happen.

Exactly. They need practical assistance and structured programmes that match local realities. We, as an organisation that defends a safe and trusted digital environment, take on the mission of leading that support. Companies need training programmes to go to their territory, because lack of time prevents small business owners from coming to us. It is necessary to go into the field and equip these structures with effective skills.

It is in this context that .pt manages the Ponto Digital platform, a project that received funding from the European Commission. In Europe, this programme is known as Digital Skills and Jobs, but we considered that this English-language name would be an unnecessary barrier for most people. We chose to name the platform Ponto Digital, making it much more accessible. It is a space where any citizen or professional can find all the training available nationwide. There are free and paid courses, at basic or advanced level, aimed both at those taking their first steps and those seeking higher specialisation. The central objective is to democratise access to knowledge anywhere in the country. But the work does not end with making the platform available; it requires a continuous effort to promote it among confederations, regional associations and IAPMEI, in order to actively attract the productive fabric to digital.

We recently surpassed the historic milestone of two million registered domains, which is a remarkable achievement for the country. More than the number itself, the most relevant aspect is the fact that growth has been consistent over time. .pt is currently among the country-code top-level domains with the highest growth rate in all of Europe. These data say a lot about the dynamism of the Portuguese digital ecosystem. They reveal that there is a real willingness, both among businesses and citizens themselves, to establish a solid, structured online presence with its own protected identity.

I would highlight three major practical advantages. The first is proximity to the Portuguese market. For local consumers, .pt immediately communicates a sense of belonging and generates instinctive trust. The second advantage is entirely related to security. The .pt ecosystem is actively managed and continuously supervised. With the recent revision of registration rules, data validation has become a mandatory condition for obtaining an address. This guarantees, beyond any doubt, that there is a real, identifiable and accountable entity behind each page on the internet.

The third major advantage lies in visibility on search engines. .pt is the clearest and most unequivocal signal one can give to algorithms that a given piece of content is relevant to people searching from Portugal. A company that adopts this extension gains a natural competitive advantage in reaching its intended target audience. It is a strategic decision with a direct impact on the effectiveness of customer acquisition and brand consolidation.

When a company presents itself in the global market with a .pt domain, it immediately communicates its connection to its country of origin. For a buyer located in France, Germany or the United States, this option carries extremely relevant information. It makes clear that the entity has an effective connection to Portugal, operates under strict European regulation, is fully subject to the General Data Protection Regulation and European Union consumer protection law, and has a perfectly verifiable legal and tax existence.

By contrast, a generic domain such as .com can be registered completely anonymously from anywhere in the world. This ease creates enormous uncertainty that many international buyers, especially in higher-value transactions, are not willing to ignore. .pt removes that uncertainty at the root. For companies designing internationalisation strategies, this is an asset worth managing with the utmost care. The "Portugal brand” enjoys a very positive reputation in several world markets, and the national domain appears as the most direct tool for capitalising on that prestige in the digital space.

Our approach to structural security works in three complementary layers. The first begins at the moment of registration. Under the new rules in force, rigorous validation of the holder’s data is strictly mandatory. This step makes it much more difficult to create domains for malicious purposes and guarantees full accountability for whoever carries out the registration. The second layer is based on pure technology. We have a Security Operations Center, PTSOC, whose central objective is to deepen national capabilities for detecting, responding to and preventing incidents and threats in cyberspace. This centre raises levels of cooperation in the context of domain name management, working in coordination with the national authority, registration agents and the entire user community, safeguarding the preservation of a safe digital space under the .pt seal.

The third layer is based on close collaboration with the competent authorities. We have swift mechanisms in place so that, upon formal notification from entities such as the National Cybersecurity Centre or the Judiciary Police, we can immediately block or remove domains being used for criminal activities or fraud schemes. The security of the national digital ecosystem is a responsibility we actively assume, in permanent coordination with those who have the legal authority to act on the ground.