The Armenian Internet Governance Forum ArmIGF 2023 was held on November 3 in the capital of Armenia, Yerevan. The annual ArmIGF Forum is an open, inclusive, transparent platform for dialogue and cooperation of all stakeholders: government, private sector, academia and non-governmental organizations. The Forum was organized by the Ministry of High-Technological Industry of the Republic of Armenia, NGO Internet Society and the Armenian branch of the Internet Society. The Forum was held for the eighth time.
The opening of ArmIGF 2023 was attended by the Minister of High-Technological Industry of the Republic of Armenia Robert Khachatryan and the Deputy Chairman of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia Hakob Arshakyan. Also speaking at the opening were representatives of international organizations – ICANN, RIPE NCC, Internet Society.
Experts from the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ also addressed the Forum. During the section dedicated to the opportunities and difficulties of Universal Acceptance implementation, the Chief Analyst of the Center, Maria Kolesnikova, shared the experience of the Coordination Center in the development of the Cyrillic domain .РФ and spoke about the reasons for its popularity among Russian users. She also noted that the introduction of Universal Acceptance of internationalized domain names and email addresses in software is important to take into account user preferences for the use of national language on the Internet.
A hot discussion at the section was about the definition and essence of the concept of Universal Acceptance, as well as the possibilities for its implementation both in an individual country and at the global level. The topic of Universal Acceptance also applies to Armenia, since Armenia has its own unique alphabet and IDN top-level domain .հայ. Panelists questioned whether it makes sense to implement Universal Acceptance in one country if other countries do not, and concluded that the IETF has developed Internet Standards (RFCs) that are available to software developers to support IDN and EAI from any country. Such standards ensure compatibility when working with domain names and email addresses with characters from different national alphabets. Therefore, the speed of implementation of Universal Acceptance may vary from country to country, but ultimately the intent is that at a technical level, all Internet-based software will handle domains and email addresses uniformly, regardless of the alphabet used, the length of the domains, or the time they were created.
The section also discussed the role of the state and the idea of creating a local specialized government body to ensure interaction with software developers within the country, as well as with global IT giants such as Google, Apple, Microsoft, to take into account technical features in working with domains and email addresses on a specific national alphabet (for example, issues of switching the language keyboard layout for typing the @ sign for the Cyrillic alphabet or the “dot” sign in the Armenian alphabet). The section participants noted the need for active participation in the process of introducing universal acceptance on the part of the business community, since a significant part of the content and applications/services for users on the Internet is created by commercial companies, which means that without their participation the problem of universal acceptance cannot be completely solved.
At a session dedicated to the preparatory process for WSIS+20, Andrey Vorobyev, Director of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ, initiated a discussion about what role representatives of the domain industry and the operator community should play in discussions about Internet Governance models. Mikhail Anisimov, Global Stakeholder Engagement Sr. Manager for Eastern Europe and Central Asia at ICANN, who participated in the section, responded that traditionally in our countries it is country domain registries that organize national Internet Governance Forums (IGFs) and also act as centers of expertise on these issues. The role of registries is therefore critical: they can communicate Internet Governance processes, teach and educate, and communicate with a wide variety of stakeholder groups.
Desiree Zeljka Milošević, co-chair of the RIPE Cooperation Working Group, also noted that historically both the domain and IP space were managed taking into account the opinions of all stakeholders, and therefore the principles that are now widely discussed in connection with the preparation of WSIS+20 are very familiar experts from the domain industry and operator community, and therefore have ample opportunity to consult with various stakeholders in the process.
