The AFNIC is involved in the registry services for the Internet of the Future and begins a partnership with GS1 France

Joint press release by AFNIC & GS1 France Saint Quentin en Yvelines, October 2nd 2008

Registry for .fr and .re Internet Top Level Domains, the AFNIC is a valuation and ressource centre in France for all the aspects linked to the DNS (Domain Name System).
This know-how is based on a permanent contribution to the Internet standardization and coordination projects as well as an R&D activity that focuses on increasing its competences and extending its action to other fields such as the Internet of Things.

Internet of Things

In this logic, the AFNIC recently signed a partnership with GS1 France, a non profit-making equal organism composed of manufacturers and
retailers. By its commercial exchanges standardization activities, in particular in charge of the EPCglobal* system, GS1 France is one of the
participant in the advent of the Internet of Things by offering a model close to a “Merchandise Intranet”.

This cooperation is represented today through the european “ONS* root” platform, recently opened by the spurring of GS1 France.
Based on the DNS model, this root concretises the convergence between the Internet standards, the automatic identification (RFID, barcodes, etc.) and
mobility, thereby justifying that experts from both sides joign to work together.

This partnership aims at sharing technical reflections on the study and developement of new services around ONS, such as the “Discovery
Services”. It also aims at having a general framework to ease collaborations between partner teams on R&D questions of common
interest which will help the work around the ONS* standardization.

The AFNIC partner of the “Internet of Things and Internet of The Future” symposium

The AFNIC will take part in the “Internet of Things and Internet of The Future” symposium that will take place
in Nice, France, on October 6th and 7th, 2008.
Its CEO, M. Mathieu Weill, will speak up during the roundtable on the problems linked to unique identifiers and the
“neutrality” of the Internet of Things.

Further information

The official website for the “Internet of Things and Internet of The Future” symposium:
www.internet2008.fr

* About ONS (Object Naming-or Name- Service)
GS1 has rolled out the first European ONS in April 2008. This service offers a new dimension to trade and new perspectives
regarding the traceability of products, and genuine response, catering to the requirements needed by logistic companies.
It is a major milestone in the advent of RFID and “Internet of Things”.
From a simple identification number based on GS1 standards and a dedicated infrastructure implemented by EPCglobal, the ONS acts a platform requesting the information on a product ID. The ONS provides translation of GS1 codes (which can be a bar code, RFID tags, or simply a number entered manually) into domain names. This conversion offers the opportunity to pass requests on the Internet issued from a client authenticated on the network by EPCglobal.

About GS1
GS1 France, Intelligent exchanges

With more then 30,000 member companies in France and more than one million in the world, GS1’s mission is to standardize technologies in
order to facilitate and secure data exchanges between companies.
Present in 108 countries and in more than 20 industries and sectors (distribution, retailing, mass market products, health, transportation, logistics, defense…), GS1 helps big firms as well as small companies to invest in new technologies: barcode implementation, e-commerce, digital catalogs and
RFID tags.
Further information: www.gs1.fr or +33 1 40 95 54 10.

About the AFNIC
(Association Française pour le Nommage Internet en Coopération )

Non-profit organization, the AFNIC is in charge of the administrative and technical management of the .fr (France) and .re (Reunion Island) Internet domain names.
The AFNIC brings together public and private members: representatives from the French government, Internet users and Internet Service Providers (Registrars).
Further information.