The 5th Internet Governance Forum held in Vilnius finished its work on 17 September 2010. Under its motto “IGF 2010 – making the future together” the Forum got together over 2000 participants from overseas around the world. The Russian delegation comprised representatives from the Coordination Center for ccTLD .RU: Mr. Andrey Kolesnikov, Mr. Mikhail Yakushev, Ms. Julia Ovchinnikova, Mr. Leonid Todorov, and Mr. Andrey Romanov.
The CC’s representatives briefed the IGF participants on The Russian First Internet Governance Forum held in Moscow in May 2010. In particular, Mr. Leonid Todorov gave a presentation on the preparation of the Russian Forum and what encouraged the Russian Registry to take upon itself a difficult task of its organization. Ms. Julia Ovchinnikova’s presentation focused on issues of ensuring participation of all stakeholders in RIGF and also provided a detailed description of a very important event which took place right on the opening day of the Russian Forum -that is, the delegation of the Cyrillic IDN TLD .РФ to the Russian Federation. Mr. Andrey Romanov analyzed the RIGF’s agenda and highlighted on the most interesting and pressing issues covered at the Russian National Forum.
In the course of the Forum the Russian delegation held a meeting with the IGF Executive Secretary, Mr. Marcus Kummer. He highly appreciated the Russian Federation’s role in development of the global IGF process. Mr. Kummer made a special note of the highest level of organization and conduct of the Russian First Internet Governance Forum and its role as a driver of the IGF processes in other CIS countries.
It should be noted that on the whole the Vilnius IGF demonstrated a great interest towards regional and national forums held last year: for example, in addition to Russia, the USA and Great Britain likewise were granted an opportunity to hold a special session on their local IGFs.
The Russian delegation took part in various discussions at the Forum. At the session “Governing the Critical Internet Resources” the Russian participants criticized the closed nature of the IPv6 deployment and alleged the process is lobbied by multinational corporations. At the same session Russian delegation briefed the IGF participants on the current state and prospects of the Cyrillic IDN TLD .РФ.
Russian representatives also participated in a discussion of “Routing and Certification of Resources”, and at the session “Deployment of DNSSEC across Territories” submitted a paper and delivered a presentation on the first experience of independent observers’s participation in the root zone governance process.
In addition to participation in general IGF-2010 events, the Russian delegation held a number of meetings with heads of international organizations in charge of Internet governance. At these meetings the Russian delegation consistently pursued a line to strengthening international cooperation in this sphere and expanding Russian representation in international organizations. The RF’s position regarding further progress on the issue of globalization of the Internet governance system remains unchanged and includes transformation of ICANN into a global structure with a broader representation of other countries and national Internet communities. This position finds ever increasing support in other countries where development of national domain space advances at a pace similar to Russia’s.
