On April 18, the 22nd Russian Internet Forum kicked off in the Moscow Region. The Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ is the forum’s partner, like in previous years: the Coordination Center’s experts are participating in the business agenda; there is a Coordination Center’s stand and also a tent, where people can drink coffee or play football videogames.
At the opening ceremony, speakers focused their attention on the further development of the internet in Russia and the country’s digitalization due to the implementation of the Digital Economy program. Leonid Levin, chairman of the Regional Public Internet Technology Center, State Duma deputy, chairman of the Committee on Information Policy, Information Technology and Communications, pointed out that the total contribution that the digital economy made to GDP, had reached five percent and continues growing. He added that it was important to raise digital awareness among the population and that it was necessary to introduce digital educational technology. According to Levin, the digital awareness rate in Russia has grown significantly in recent years and is 5.99 points out of ten now. Increasing digital awareness is one of the Coordination Center’s priorities, so this growth is also one of the center’s merits.
Digital Region is another large project the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ participates in this year. Sergei Petrov, chairman of the Coordination Center Council, director of the Internet Development Institute, described this project at the opening ceremony of the forum. Digital Region is a complex of informative, educational, research, and analytical events for digital technology decision-makers in various management spheres of the Russian regions as well as in the local administration. The aim of the project is to spread digital technology in Russia as widely as possible.
Russian domains have an important place in the country’s digital economy. According to the Internet Development Institute’s data, last year the domain market grew ten percent to 3.2 billion. Today the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ does everything possible to make this market work stably and smoothly, the center’s director Andrey Vorobyev said during his speech at the opening ceremony: “Recently the Coordination Center has passed its Technical Center’s functions (registries’ operator) for the .RU/.РФ ccTLDs to Rostelecom. It was done in order to provide a more stable system of the Russian internet address system that the national operator can guarantee. In fact, today we have reached a new and higher security level for the entire Russian domain space. In addition to this, we are strengthening the state’s role in managing ccTLDs.” Andrey Vorobyev also spoke about implementing the new rules for processing personal data envisaged by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which comes into effect in the European Union in May. It is noteworthy that these new European rules are exterritorial, so they also work on the Russian market. The Coordination Center’s director said that the center will closely monitor the legal precedents under these rules.
In the afternoon, Andrey Vorobyev spoke at the Data Business: Balance between Interests of Users, Companies, and State section, where he presented the survey “Russian internet development trends” carried out jointly with the Higher School of Economics.
The main specifics of this survey is that it is not based on expert estimations but on data taken from statistics received from official sources, such as the Russian Federal Service for State Statistics, Ministry of Communications and Mass Media, Ministry of Education and Science, Ministry of Culture, as well as the Bank of Russia. The applied methods are based on the world’s best practices, which are also applied by such organizations as the OECD, Eurostat, and the International Telecommunication Union. “We believe the current survey will be popular with various Russian state agencies. As well as this, it can serve as a “tuning fork” other research tools may be attuned to. The conclusions drawn from the statistics will show how adequate and real other types of research based on expert opinion are,” Andrey Vorobyev said.
According to the survey, during the last five years the number of Russian citizens who know how to navigate the internet has grown, from 66 percent in 2012 to 80.8 percent in 2016. Russian citizens are cooperating with the state and regional internet agencies more actively and getting more state services online: the number of these citizens grew almost by half in 2014–2016 (up to 51.3 percent). A third of the respondents (32.4 percent) used the most popular e-service: doctor appointments.
“It is very important that our survey covered quite a long period, and we can see the trends in the internet and in the Russian segment in particular. I am sure that the data from the survey will prove useful for a wide range of market players,” Andrey Vorobyev said.
The Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ has prepared a detailed event program for the 2018 Russian Internet Forum. On the second day of the forum, April 19, the Coordination Center will hold the Domains vs. Stakeholders section. In addition to this, an extended meeting of the Coordination Center’s Committee for the Domain Space Development will be held on the same day. There is a large Coordination Center tent next to the entrance to the main boardinghouse open throughout the forum with Sony PlayStation competitions held there. There are accredited .RU and .РФ registrars at the Coordination Center booth who present their services and hold various quizzes and contests. Visitors are taking part in a domain quest and trying to win a valuable prize.
