On May 23, 2018, ICANN CEO and President Goran Marby and Chief Technology Officer David Conrad had a meeting with specialists from the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ and representatives of the Russian domain registration market in Moscow to discuss the main problems and the latest trends in the development of the global Internet addressing system.
Although other ICANN officials have met with Russian representatives before, Goran Marby and David Conrad came to Moscow for the first time. Goran Marby warmly welcomed the Russian participants at the meeting and suggested beginning with questions, most of which had to do with of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) coming into force in the European Union on May 25.
Goran Marby noted that the GDPR is a European law and concerns exclusively the citizens of the European Union. At the same time, it affects 50 million domain names, so ICANN cannot leave it without paying attention to it.
Starting from May 25, the Internet will contain less publicly available personal information, and the law does not specify how this information can be accessed by law enforcement agencies. The Internet is entirely built on personal data exchange, but the GDPR will limit this exchange, actually exacerbating the problem, Goran Marby said. According to Marby, over a period of the past two years, ICANN has significantly intensified its work with government agencies to know in advance which Internet laws they are working on. This approach should prevent possible negative consequences of the adoption of ill-considered laws.
In this regard, it is important to carry out targeted education of users about the Internet, its structure and operation. People should have an idea of how the network works, and how user-web interactions are built. The Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ has a lot of experience in working with users – primarily with young people and children. Another important topic raised at the meeting is dealing with cyberthreats. The ICANN leaders expressed admiration about the way this work is being done in RuNet. Russia is taking very interesting steps in cybersecurity, such as creating hotlines. We at ICANN can learn from this experience and spread it to other countries, Marby said. David Conrad also talked about the development of the law enforcement functions that ICANN is currently working on.
One of the reasons we came to Moscow is to start working together in this area, he said.
These subjects were raised at a restricted meeting of the leadership of the RU /РФ Coordination Center and ICANN held before the open event. They also discussed aspects of managing domain space in the region, the Russian Internet community’s stance on the key issues of network development, the exchange of experience and organization of joint events.
“I am happy to be here. The ICANN organization continuously engages with the diverse regional communities across the globe as part of its strategy. Today’s outreach allowed us to discuss up close the community’s interests and concerns, and look at how to best facilitate increased and more effective Russian participation to ICANN org’s overall work. Success is built on cooperation, partnership, and innovation same as the Internet itself,” Goran Marby commented on the outcome of the meeting.
“We are very pleased with the way the talks went and the high interest shown by the Russian Internet community to the work of ICANN. I am sure that this meeting will lay the foundation for the continuation of further intense cooperation, and will be an important step in the preparations of the Eastern European DNS Forum Moscow will host at the end of 2018,” Coordination Center Director Andrey Vorobyev said.
