On April 8, there was a press conference dedicated to the 30th anniversary of .RU held at the Rossiya Segodnya press center. The press conference, moderated by Andrey Vorobyev, Director of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ, was attended by Anton Gorelkin, Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Information Policy, Information Technologies and Communications of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, Sergey Grebennikov, Director of RAEC, Andrey Kuzmichev, General Director of the company RU-CENTER, and Alexey Rogdev, General Director of the Technical Center of Internet.
“.RU carefully prepared for its anniversary: on the night of April 7, it passed an important milestone: it now has more than 5.6 million domain names, which is a record value in the entire history of the domain. The successful growth and development of the Russian national domain would not have been possible without the coordinated work of the Russian national registry - the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ, domain name registrars, Internet providers, companies responsible for the infrastructure of the Russian Internet, and government bodies and organizations. Participants in the press conference will tell you how import substitution is progressing in the domain sphere, what legislative innovations in this area should be expected, what is being done and planned to be done to strengthen the security of the Russian domain space, and will also present a plan of anniversary events for the 30th anniversary of.RU,” – Andrey Vorobyev said.
Anton Gorelkin spoke about the draft law currently being prepared to regulate the process of domain name administration. According to him, the document will be submitted to the State Duma this year. He clarified that such an agreement has been reached with all the actors on whom this depends.
“We plan to make registration for domain name registrars and individuals, verify this information through a unified identification and authentication system (USIA), that is, make it part of the State Services ecosystem. This bill will actually solve one of the most pressing problems associated with phishing in the ru domain zone,” Anton Gorelkin said.
Andrey Vorobyev noted that the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ fully supports this initiative and has long been in favor of the adoption of this bill. The introduction of domain administrator authentication through the Unified Identification and Identification of Authorities (Gosuslugi portal) will not only become an obstacle in the way of phishers, but will also solve a number of problems with the impossibility of renewing or selling a domain due to the use of outdated or erroneous data when registering them.
Alexey Rogdev spoke about the challenges TCI has faced in recent years and how the company is coping with them. He identified two challenges: import substitution and achieving technological independence. In particular, in terms of technological independence, he cited the example of the TLS ecosystem and the TCI Certification Center, which is an independent development of the company, and noted that the movement towards such independence in Russia, although slow at the beginning, has accelerated significantly in recent years, including thanks to the fact that the state managed to build the necessary interactions to discuss these issues with all interested parties.
Andrey Kuzmichev noted that today a mature aftermarket for domain names has finally formed. He named the increasing number of websites of small and medium-sized businesses as the most interesting direction for the growth of Russian domains.
Sergei Grebennikov in his speech cited the main figures characterizing the state of the Runet economy. Over the past ten years alone, the volume of the Runet economy has grown from 1 trillion rubles to 16.4 trillion rubles. According to the Runet Economy study, in 2023 the growth will be 35% compared to 2022. The leader among the RuNet segments is e-commerce, which is estimated to account for 15.4 trillion rubles in 2023, while in 2013 this segment amounted to only 520 billion rubles, and a detailed a report that proves that Runet is a significant part of the entire Russian economy.
“For 30 years, the Russian Internet industry has repeatedly faced serious challenges, but despite everything, the Runet grew and expanded, new markets appeared in its composition, and innovative vectors of development were born. This is evidenced by the economic indicators that RAEC has been measuring for more than 13 years,” the speaker said.
Sergey Grebennikov also presented a plan of events to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the .RU domain and Runet in 2024.
