In late November, the committee on internet governance issues of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ held a meeting. The participants discussed internet governance developments and trends in 2020, shared their impressions of IGF 2020, which was held online for the first time due to the COVID-19 pandemic, talked about international events, and discussions which impact the internet governance process.
At the start of the committee meeting, its chairman, Andrei Romanov, suggested including Mikhail Anisimov, in the committee for 2021. Anisimov is the Senior Manager for Eastern Europe and Central Asia at ICANN. He also suggested bringing in Maxim Burtikov, External Relations Officer (Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia) at RIPE NCC. The committee members endorsed the initiative and approved the new committee members. The attendees also reaffirmed their commitment to continue their work in the committee next year.
Following that, the participants proceeded to the agenda items and discussed the outcome of the last IGF and other international events, exchanged views on the new online format and opinions on further prospects for such formats.
They noted that virtualization has become a critical process under the global pandemic. According to the participants, in the coming three to five years the world would have to stick to this format more than to the traditional in-person format for meetings. Also, even though the distance format makes it possible to engage a bigger audience, the real number of workshop participants was not large (30-40 people) which indicates fading interest among the audience and the need for upgrading the event in line with current realities. In most cases the agendas, speakers and moderators remain the same, but the names are changed and the number of interesting sections is dropped. This seems to suggest that an in-person event cannot be replicated online, and that the format and presentation should be concurrently altered.
During the Open Forum at IGF 2020, ICANN unveiled the concept of technical internet governance. According to Mikhail Anisimov, it incorporates issues related to the technical functioning of the global network, in particular, its infrastructure operations and address system. “Internet governance spans a broad range of topics, from network access to content. This term was introduced to narrow the focus and identify the point of application for technical organizations like ICANN,” Mikhail Anisimov said.
He also noted that a broad public discussion of the concept is slated to be held within the framework of 2021 events.
Regarding the process launched by the Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace, there are no reports in the information field about any progress in this work. The standards proposed by the commission are still being discussed within working groups and the results have not yet been made public.
To wrap up the discussion, Ilona Stadnik, youth projects coordinator at the Coordination Center, presented a review of Russia’s first Summer School of Internet Governance and plans to further develop the project by engaging a broad pool of Russian and foreign experts in the education program. The members of the committee were also invited to join in.
