On 9 February 2010 the inauguration Forum on Safe Internet was held in Moscow. The RF Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications and the Organizing Committee of the Year of Safe Internet became its organizers. The Coordination Center for TLD .RU was the official partner of the Forum.
In February 2009, a number of non-government and business organizations, including the Coordination Center for TLD .RU decided holding the Year of Safe Internet in Russia. Its initiators and organizers have set a goal to unite efforts of the whole society, rather than individual organizations to protect children from the risks posed by the cyberspace. The Forum demonstrated the efforts were united indeed, and already today the work is underway on interaction between non-government and commercial organizations in support of a safe digital environment wherein children and teenagers can feel safe.
In his presentation at the Forum, Andrey Kolesnikov, director of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU, emphasized that the Internet is a family of channels, protocols and data saving and processing systems whose content is supplied by its users. “Today, the Internet has become a mirror to our society – the Russian and global ones. Some are inclined to consider it an image-distorting mirror. However, it most likely reflects advantages and emphasizes drawbacks of what we face in our everyday life.”
“The Year of Safe Internet has demonstrated that it is impossible to fight negative content in the Internet only by technical means, only by way of legislation, and as everyone for himself. It is impossible to exterminate criminal content in the Web, just as it is impossible to do offline. However, it is plausible to substantially minimize influence of the negative content on children, providing we act together,” wrapped up Andrey Kolesnikov. ‘The Coordination Center has signed the Declaration “For Safety of Children and the Young in the Internet.’ Now it is the society, government and the Internet industry’s turn to make concrete steps on minimizing the influence of the negative content on children and youth.”
«At the Forum a roundtable “Development of mechanisms for the professional Internet community interaction aimed at protection of the younger generation from the Internet threats” was held. Its organizers and moderators were Julia Ovchinnikova, member of the Council of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU and co-chair of the Program committee of the Year of Safe Internet, and Alexander Panov, managing partner of Hosting Community. At the roundtable, its participants discussed a draft Agreement of Russian hosting providers on promotion of safety for the minor Internet users from unlawful actions. The Agreement became the result of activities by the ad-hoc group known as “OFISP 2.0”, whish had been established by the Coordination Center for TLD .RU within the framework of the Year of Safe Internet. The Group united leading lawyers, Internet community representatives, domain registrars, Internet providers and reps from the Ministry of Interior.
The roundtable participants stressed the importance of, and of the need in such an Agreement. Leading telecom operators have already taken the path of protecting the minors’ interests on the Internet and the Agreement will give a further boost to coordination of major Internet participants’ operations in this area. In particular, in his presentation “Providing for safety of the Internet users as a part of an operator’s social responsibility” Andrey Alexeev, director of the department for service networks of “Komstar-OTC” asserted that many provisions included in the Agreement had already been present in the operator’s Contract Offer.
Mr. Yaroslav Bykhovsky, development director of the program “1 student – 1 computer” of the Intel Corporation in Russia/CIS maintained that the Intel Corporation introduces the Internet to the younger generation by providing students with free laptops.
Mikhail Kondrashin, director general of ZAO “APL” Company presented a model of a threat to the minor Internet users. “We should not reduce child’s protection in the Internet merely to a fencing him off from the undesirable information,” noted Mr. Kondrashin. “Our goal is to train a child not to relay excessive information in the Internet.”
Alexander Panov, the roundtable moderator, spoke in detail about the work on the Agreement and what had been behind its rise. “No matter how much protective technologies improve, there will always be those who will manage to bypass these network filters and shields. That is why, even in the early 2000s the Open Forum ISPs developed a social document on combating spam which subsequently was introduced in contract offers by the majority of service providers. Today, we want to replicate this experience and create similar sectoral regulations which will help protecting the younger generation from the threats in the Internet,” said Mr. Panov.
Summarizing on the discussion, Julia Ovchinnikova noted that the work on the Agreement is continuing and all concerned individuals and organizations are invited to partake in the discussion. “I’m happy the first discussion of the Agreement has stirred such interest. Many questions have arisen for professional analysis and together we will find answers to them. We are developing a document whose provisions, as we hope, all hosting providers would like to employ in their contracts. The Year of Safe Internet is ending. However, we will continue our work for a safer Internet in the years to come,” concluded she.
