Such an event is vital to discuss issues common for all the registrars and registries, irrespectively of the fact that states where these entities operate have different directions of development. This time the conference was attended by over 70 participants from 25 countries. The event gathered representatives of the national registries and registrars. Drawing the conclusions, it can be stated for sure that the conference was a success!
The two-day conference agenda was very intense. The speakers managed to cover the issues of Internet management, IDN implementation, legal regulation of global network, balance of interests between the state and internet-registries, and many others. The conference participants have discussed the recent changes in the domain industry and Internet in general. For many the main purposes of visiting the conference were the exchange of experience with colleagues, learning the modern tendencies and technologies of the domain market, and, of course, making new contacts, including the ones with the potential partners. People who know each other well were glad to meet again in the disposing atmosphere of the conference initiated by the Coordination Center for TLD RU for the second time already.
The conference was opened by the Minister of Higher Education, Science, and Technology Nikolaj Simic. Representatives of co-hosters - the ccTLD registries of Russia and Slovenia – Director of the Coordination Center for TLD RU Andrey Kolesnikov and Director of the Academic and Research Network of Slovenia (ARNES) Barbara Povse – also addressed the audience with a welcome and a brief overview of their activities, same as did the Director of the Internet Society of Slovenia (ISOC-SI) Borka Jerman Blazic.
The first day of the conference was devoted to Internet-marketing and the ccTLD domains promotion, same as the implementation of IDN domains in various countries. Theresa Swinehart, vice-president of ICANN, presented the audience with the overview of Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) activity and described ICANN position on prolonging the Joint Project Agreement (JPA) with the United States Department of Commerce. The report evoked a stormy discussion – that had been brewing long in the internet-community. The question was asked about the intensity of ICANN influence on Internet governance process and whether ICANN stands for the interests of America in this sphere. Simply saying, whether the Internet has a “red button” and where, logically, can it be? In the heated discussion of such a vital issue the participants came to a conclusion that to be definitely sure that a certain phenomenon or object exists, it is necessary to see it or, what is better, to try using it. However, in spite of the political acuteness of this issue, the Internet structure itself makes us think that such a button still does not exist.
As to the implementation of IDN, Veni Markovski – ICANN representative in Russia and the CIS – made an interesting presentation on the issue. The conference participants interested in the process have finally got answers to important questions related to getting IDN with a Fast Track procedure and timing of new TLD implementation, and also gained all the necessary explanations on the multi-level arrangement of this complicated and principally new structure of international domain area arrangement.
Andrey Kolesnikov, Director of the Coordination Center for TLD RU, presented a program of .РФ domain implementation. Currently the Coordination Center has the following timing planned: priority registrations in .РФ for the holders of exclusive rights on trademarks is scheduled for November 2009 – March 2010; sunrise period is planned to be launched in April 2010, and the opened registration is scheduled for July – August 2010. Kolesnikov also presented a detailed plan of .РФ implementation project steps, told about the program on its promotion, and described the technical platform the new Cyrillic domain will be based on.
Joke Braeken, EURid, and Daniel Kalchev, Register.BG, shared plans and experience of IDN implementation in the European (.EU) and Bulgarian (.BG) ccTLD domains, accordingly.
On the second day of the conference the issues of secondary domain name market were discussed, the legal issues registries and registrars of country code top-level domains have to face, the problems of interest balance between internet-registries and state, and also the role of ccTLD registries in supporting stability and reliability of the DNS system. A highly interesting presentation devoted to legal issues related to IDN domains was made by Michail Yakushev, Chairman of Council of the Coordination Center for TLD RU. He spoke of ICANN powers in IDN management, internationalization of WHOIS service, and also the technical issues of novelties – adaptation of browsers and mail applications to IDN. Michail covered a range of problems that should be solved internationally before the IDN introduction and told about the internal regulation of a domain area with Russia as an example.
The audience also specially noted the presentation by Davor Šoštarič, a representative of the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, and Technology, and also a Slovenia representative in GAC. In his presentation he managed to vividly show a successfully functioning cooperation scheme between the Slovenian ccTLD registry and the state.
At the grand closing of the conference Andrey Kolesnikov, Director of the main organiser of the event – Coordination Center for TLD RU, thanked all the participants for the interesting presentations and overviews and also expressed a belief that practice of conducting International conferences for ccTLD registrirs and registrars of the CIS, Central and Eastern Europe will definitely become regular, every year the conference will be extending and attract new interesting speakers without losing the event’s habitués. “Practice makes perfect, same as before, - Kolesnikov noted. – It is even better than the first time. Both by intensity, and by organisation, and by the interest of the participants of the important event we all have made together. Hopefully, every year, gaining priceless experience we will improve it and make it more and more important for the Internet sphere”.
All the presentations are available on the conference’s official website at: meeting2009.cctld.ru/agenda.html
