On November 6, the final day of the ICANN 66 meeting in Montreal, experts from the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ took part in the ccNSO (country-code Names Supporting Organization) session devoted to internet governance. Representatives of national top-level domains from various countries spoke about their participation in local and international forums and internet governance schools, and how these initiatives help them reach their own goals.
Irina Daneliya, deputy director of the Coordination Center, told the audience about the Russian Internet Governance Forum, which the Russian registry has hosted for the past 10 years. “The Russian RIGF helps us deal with several tasks at once. Our Charter says that the Coordination Center should facilitate the expansion of the internet in Russia and involve all interested parties in it,” Daneliya said. “The format of the forum is based on the concept of a multi-stakeholder approach, and all discussions of important issues always include representatives of various companies and organizations, the state and the public, as well as the engineering community. In addition, the forum allows us to solve many tasks related to improving digital literacy and raising public awareness about the Coordination Center’s projects. Thus, it was at the very first internet governance forum in 2009 where the presentation of the first national domain .РФ took place. The domain was only preparing to be launched at that time.”
Another activity of the Coordination Center is to issue various guidelines on internet governance. In 2018, the Coordination Center translated and published the seventh edition of An Introduction to Internet Governance by Jovan Kurbalija. This is the second issue of the Diplo bestseller in the Russian language that was published under the auspices of the Coordination Center. Kurbalija’s book was first released in the Russian language by the Coordination Center in 2010. The publication marked the holding of the 1st Russian Internet Governance Forum, RIGF 2010. “The book is quite popular, and both in 2010 and now we had to print extra copies. And soon this book in Russian will also be published in Belarus. It was a pleasure for us to help our Belarusian colleagues prepare this edition,” Daneliya said.
Representatives of other national registries also spoke about their initiatives in internet governance. Thus, Jorg Schweiger, a representative of Germany’s domain .DE, said that DE.NIC would like to not only influence the current operation of the internet, but also have an impact on how it will look in the future. Lianna Galstyan, a representative of ISOC Armenia, noted that many traditional subjects of IGF, such as cybersecurity, IDN, regulations and engineering infrastructure, are under the supervision of national registries; therefore their participation in forums and internet governance schools is only logical. Representatives of New Zealand’s domain .NZ emphasized that national and regional initiatives on internet governance allow for establishing a fruitful dialog with the government authorities.
The ICANN 66 conference has concluded. The next event will take place on March 7−12, 2020 in Cancun, Mexico.
