Analysis of the Internet diffusion in the no.profit sector: the social digital divide in Italy

In this paper particular attention has been paid to organisations like associations, foundations, committees, and other institutions, to analyse the adoption and diffusion of the Internet technology in the no-profit sector. Our study shows that the Internet diffusion in the no-profit area is growing very quickly, and cannot be considered as marginal phenomenon. The analysis show that among the no-profit legal forms, the associations are the ones which registers domain names more. Our final goal was then to verify if a social digital divide exists both in terms of geographical distribution (at macro areas - north, center and south - and regional level) and in terms of legal status (associations, foundations, committees, others). The study showed that although it is decreasing, a digital divide is currently present both among the different geographic areas and the legal forms.