New Zealand is the top-ranked country in Asia-Pacific when it comes to utilising the World Wide Web the best, according to a league table developed by the creator of the internet.
Web founder Tim Berners-Lee's foundation has released its first Web Index, ranking 61 countries in the way they put the web to work best, and New Zealand fills seventh spot, one ahead of neighbours Australia.
It comes ahead of regional competitors Singapore, Korea and Japan using indicators to assess the political, economic and social impact of the web, as well as indicators of web connectivity and infrastructure.
Sweden tops the league table launched by the World Wide Web Foundation, followed by the US in second and the UK in third.
Yemen, Zimbabwe and Burkina Faso were the bottom three of the countries measured.
New Zealand was in the top five for social impact, web content and institutional infrastructure but was 15th when it came the communications infrastructure and 17th in economic impact.
The foundation reported New Zealand had 83.01 internet users per 100 people.
Dr Berners-Lee, who launched the web on Christmas Day in 1990, said at the launch of the index in London on Wednesday: "Growing suppression of free speech, both online and offline is possibly the single biggest challenge to the future of the web."
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