On 12 May 2011, the 2nd Russian Internet Governance Forum opened in Expocentr Krasnaya Presnya. The event was co-hosted by the Coordination Center for TLD .RU and the RF Ministry of Telecommunications and Mass Media.

Igor Schegolev, the RF Minister of Telecommunications and Mass Media, opened the Forum. In his presentation he emphasized importance of the Russian Internet Governance Forum. Expansion of the Internet dictates harmonization of interests of all Internet stakeholders,” – said the Minister. And the Forum, stressed Mr. Schegolev, solves the critical task of uniting them in order to discuss and address key issues of Internet governance in Russia, and worldwide.

The Minister noted that Russia has to date created a unique practice of Internet governance, which can be of interest and useful for foreign colleagues. "We stand for free development of the Internet and do not intend to impose any strict total control over the functioning of the Internet in Russia," - said Mr. Schegolev. Referencing to the structure of the Internet regulation worldwide, the Minister asserted that any national regulation would be plausible only when the model of interaction between all the stakeholders engaged in Internet governance would be employed on an international scale.

At the plenary session of the Forum, addresses were given by Mikhail Grishankov, First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Security; Peter Dengate Thrush, Chairman of the Board of ICANN; Alexander Ntoko, Head of Corporate Strategy Division of ITU; Alexander Turkot, Vice President of the Skolkovo Foundation; Markus Kummer, ISOC Vise President of Public Policy; Natalya Kasperskaya, Chairperson of the Board of Director of the CSC “Kaspersky Lab”, General Director of InfoWatch;  Jovan Kurbalija, Director of Diplo Foundation; and Marina Nikerova, Chair of the CC’s Board.

Peter Dengate Thrush noted a huge role which Russia has played lately in the Internet governance processes and called on the Russian Internet community to take a pro-active stance in this process. Mikhail Grishankov focused on the Internet security and the need for a reasonable control of it. Alexander Ntoko outlined prospects for a rapidly unfolding global partnership between major international organizations dealing with modern telecommunications. Alexander Turkot spoke of prospects of Russia's innovation project Skolkovo and the prospective registration of another Russian domain created specifically for the project, that is-.SKOLKOVO.

Markus Kummer reckoned that the Internet owes its success as a vital social and economic tool, first of all, to a unique model of development and engagement. “Co-governance has made the Internet what it is now. Without the engagement of a wide range of stakeholders combined with an open and transparent cooperation it is unlikely that the Internet will flourish for the benefit of all,” – stressed Mr. Kummer. Natalya Kasperskaya spoke about opportunities the Internet offers to businesses, as well as threats it poses for them. "The Internet is a pervasive medium, and this has its pros and cons," – said she. Jovan Kurbalija proceeded with the theme of interaction between users and the Internet environment: “All modern Internet services are already employing cloud technology, although their users at times do not know about this,” – he told RIGF-2011 participants.

At the close of the session the audience congratulated Marina Nikerova on having been nominated for the ICANN Board. "Today, Internet governance actually is governing our lives," - she said. "And everything else will depend on how efficiently we implement Internet governance."

Sergey Plugotarenko, RAEK Director, moderated the panel “Russian and European Internet Governance Prospects: Reaching the Consensus.” In his opening address he said that the main task of the Forum – to unite all points of view on the Internet governance issue. “It is not a secret to anyone, - continued Sergey, - that Europe is one of the acknowledged global leaders in many issues related to the Internet. However, today Russia is developing cyberspace at a great speed, and, moreover, Russia is one of few countries which is following its own unique path We also accumulated experience, which we are ready to share.”

The first issue, which shaped the discussion became key peculiarities, problems and challenges in the sphere of Internet governance Europe-wide and in each European country, in particular.
Madina Kasenova, Professor of Law of the Diplomatic Academy of RFA, opened the discussion. She noted that, first of all, we all must determine concepts we operate with regard to Internet governance. Mikhail Yakushev, a lawyer and the former CC’s Board member, added, that, “What we call in the Russian language ‘governance of the Internet’, actually, sounds like ‘Internet governance’”. This is an American notion, which is untranslatable not only to the Russian language but in many other languages, either. “Governance” is better to translate as “management”. “Governance” is a much wider, manifold notion. Olivier Crepin-Leblond, representative of ISOC, England, spoke about another very important concern. “Internet governance, - held he, - is not simply interaction between the state, business community and the civil society. We should not forget that without the society, without the users the Internet is dead.” Another participant in the discussion, Jovan Kurbalija, Director of Diplo Foundation, agreed with him. He also added that a sound development of the Internet governance processes worldwide necessitates some framework document, a common intergovernmental convention. Bertrand de la Chapelle, Program Director of the International Diplomatic Academy, member of the ICANN Board, introduced an important perspective in the debate “I believe the role of various stakeholders in the governance process may differ significantly. This depends on each specific issue to be resolved,” – noted he. 

The next theme for discussion at the panel was to what degree institutions and organizations currently in one way or another associated with Internet governance keep along with their responsibilities. Jovan Kurbalija noted that the main issueboils down to regulation of the national domains . This is the area of Internet governance where each country feels it appropriate to introduce its own rules, which are consistent with the national law. He asserts that ICANN is doing well in trying to oversee these processes. Madina Kasenova agreed with him. “ICANN is a leading organization uniting all stakeholders engaged in this complex process, - noted she. No single country within its national registry is able to cope with these complex issues by itself. They must be united by something, and ICANN, in my opinion, perfectly manages with this task.” The Last issue the participants in the panel discussed was control over the Internet from “atop”, what Sergey Plugotarenko called the “Big Brother”. Roelof Meyer, Executive Director of the Dutch national registry, voiced the discussants’ collective opinion . He stressed that the Internet did not require any “Big Brother”, but the private sector should take greater responsibility in regard to self regulation than it does today. Jovan Kurbalija added: “The Internet does not require any specific individual control; however, legal oversight is necessary and in most cases it is justified.”

Recapping on the discussion, Mikhail Yakushev raised the last important issue. “A new functionality is being currently employed in the Internet, while old tools remain nonetheless, - asserted he. – We say that the Internet has become more national, detached, but it does not become less international. Today, under the notion of user in the Internet we understand Internet users and users of those social media and services which they patronize, and citizens of a country with its specific legal structure. This is what we must gradually appreciate, and it is necessary to regulate relationships between users, business and government on the premises of the trans-border nature of the Internet.”

Markus Kummer, ISOC’s Vice President for Public Policy, and Andrey Romanov, the CC’s Deputy Director, moderated the panel “Internet Governance in Russia and CIS”. Participants in the panel represented CIS countries: – Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Moldova. They spoke about the challenges facing development of the Internet space in their countries. Practically all the presenters stressed the importance of developing the national domain space to ensure expansion of the Internet in their countries on the whole.

Markus Kummer also specified the national registries’ role in the today’s Internet governance. “End users often confront official structures on the Internet governance issues. It is national registries that boast today of sufficient experience and expertise to tackle these issues,” – said he. Andrey Romanov was keen to know the way national registries operate in the CIS countries. “We have the common background and that is why our registries have a lot in common, however, there are differences.”

Andrey Kolesnikov, the CC’s Director, briefed the participants in the panel on how the issues of freedom and regulation of the Internet are resolved in Russia. Andrey Kolesnikov cited interesting figures, which highlight the impact of domains on the Internet development. For example, the launch of the new Cyrillic domain .РФ in Russia has just in one year enabled the RUnet to burst into the top 5 European Internet nations. “Having been delegated top-level domains in national languages, nations simultaneously received a perfect resource to be used by citizens,” – noted he. “For two and a half years the Coordination Center has been working on a project of implementation of the national domain .РФ in close cooperation with the government and business. However, originally the majority of the business community representatives treaded the would-be domain with caution and were even negative towards it. And this is quite understandable, for the national domain, first of all, centers on users with a poor or no command of the English language, who are not the target audience for businesses.”  “Five years ago, nobody in Russia knew about ICANN and ISOC. Two years ago, most users had no idea what domain is. A year ago, no one in the country bothered to know how the Internet is regulated. So, the Coordination Center played an enlightening role particularly by holding our Forum, which attracts representatives from various fora. Once the Forum is over all its participants will go and spread the word about what we have discussed here.”

Tattu Mambetalieva, Director of the Kyrgyz “Civil Initiative of the Internet Policy” Foundation, reckons that national domains enjoy a low demand across the post-Soviet space. “I think that this is because in some countries, government hold the domain space in their iron grip , while in some others, domains are very expensive and it is far cheaper to register a domain name, for example, in gTLD .com,” – explained T. Mambetalieva. She stressed that poorly developed domain space in many CIS countries leads to underdevelopment of the Internet: hosting services appear to be missing, which, consequently, drastically limits the number of sites in national languages, and users switch to Russian- or English-language websites instead. Tattu bitterly noted that Kyrgyzstan lacks national social media and national groups emerging in the global network, are unable to solve local problems.

Igor Mkrtumian, President of the Armenian public organization “Society Internet”, contradicted T. Mambetalieva: “I consider that in Armenia, the domain space is booming. Yes, so far we have only 15 thousand domain names, but are expanding in the right direction. In championing TLD .am, we are motivated by decisions by, first of all, international organizations: ISOC, ICANN and IGF, - and this resonates with the country’s needs.” He believes that the main challenge facing the today’s Internet is security.

Oksana Prikhodko, an expert from Ukraine and representative of the “European Platform” revealed a good detective story about what happens with the domain space in Ukraine. She ruefully stated that so far there has no consensus between the Internet community and representatives of the government in Ukraine. ms. Prikhodko hoped that the 1st Ukrainian Forum on Internet Governance, which was held in September 2010, will continue in 2011 and form a starting point for solving the  challenges Internet governance and domain space in Ukraine currently face.

Djalolatdin Rakhimov, Director of UZINFOCOM Center, described the situation with Internet governance in Uzbekistan in the following way: “Our main problem is as the Internet has a trans-border nature and there is no way to cut short illegal activity on the Net, because they originate from abroad.” He briefed attendees that thanks to the state agencies and the Internet community’s joint efforts today the Uzbek national segment of the Internet is practically free from viruses, pornography and other negative content. “I believe that while access to the Internet should remain free and anonymous, generation of traffic should be authorized nevertheless. And this is a huge plus: for example, one of the most popular forums in the Uznet became a credible platform for interaction and it is patronized even by public officials. And this is because all the participants therein use their real names.”

Dona Scola, Deputy Minister of Information Technology and Communications of the Republic of Moldova, reminded the audience that Twitter revolutions started in Moldova in 2009. “That event ignited numerous processes in our country and since then Moldova has been on its way to open society. In practice, we strive to implement the collective Internet governance model,” – stressed she.
Finally, Markus Kummer reminded the participants: “Good Internet governance starts from home.”

The Panel on “The Future of Internet Scenarios: Russian and the US’s Perspectives” was held in the form of a show, thus engaging speakers and the audience, who were given remote voting devices. The Panel moderator, Leonid Todorov, the CC’s Deputy Director, briefed the audience on the origin of the debated issue. He said: “Last year, at the 5th IGF in Vilnius we, together with our American colleagues, attended the same panel and briefed on our national IGFs. This turned out to be a perfect opportunity to learn from each other experiences and expertise in the Internet governance area .The American colleagues had already gained experience in adapting some tendencies with regard to the Internet and society’s development, and I believe it will be interesting to us to see the way these scenarios might be implemented in Russia.”

The first scenario, Internet Islands, implied a possible split of the Internet into separate, interst-driven segments.” Shane Tews, Vice-President on Global Policy of VeriSign, Inc., referred to the fact that already now many users consider that they have no control over the Internet and because of this, the Network has become unsafe. That is why they create islands wherein they feel comfortable. Creation of such islands makes the Internet far more expensivefor users and gives rise to certain closed zones on all levels. Ivan Zassoursky, Head of Chair of the New Media and Theory of Communication of the Department of Journalism of the Lomonosov MSU, emphasized that, “islands represent a free choice for everyone. It is critical to make information open and everyone can get access to it. We don’t need isolation of certain islands, but we need creation of a general comfortable situation in the Internet environment.”

The theme The Users’ Reign stirred a great interest. Pablo Molina, Professor of the Georgetown University, reminded the audience that many global developments occur thanks to the Internet users. Twitter revolutions across the Arab world, large scandals ignited by the Wikileaks publications result from ordinary users’ activities. At the same time, the users, on the one hand, are concerned about their online safety, while on the other hand, they are afraid of censorship on the Internet. And it is quite plausible that the Internet will be governed by users. Mikhail Dvorkovich, an independent Internet expert, reckons that Internet governance will be exercised in the future on equal footing by two groups: business and users. “Governments worldwide should leave the Internet alone, like government quitted the market in all developed countries.” Pablo Molina remarked that governments, nevertheless, should play a role in Internet governance, for example, by protecting children from undesirable content or combating organized crime. Mikhail Dvorkovich shot back by saying that,: “The state should become a professional Internet user and, wearing this hat, interact with all users and with business.”

The 3rd section of the panel –that is, Global Government for the Internet Marilyn Cade, member of the subcommittee on Internet governance and online services of TechAmerica, called an “awesome” scenario. “The Internet is booming, first of all, thanks to children and the elderly. And because of this, government agencies will be concerned about who and how logs on the Internet. Free exchange of information in the Internet should also be under control: the author should be held responsible for the information. That is why certification of Internet users is feasible, as, for example, certification of drivers who must obtain licenses before grasping the steering wheel of an automobile. And citizens may start demanding from the state to ensure their safety online, if the state will act as a regulator at the citizens’ request” – said she and concluded: “The governments can save the Internet!” Sonia Sokolova, co-founder of the first Russian music website Zvuki.ru categorically opposed this scenario of the Internet’s development. “The state in this case will substitute the notion of security and under the pretext of safety will deliver an absolutely different service –namely, regulation. This is plausible only in case the users agree to purchase it and endure inconveniences. In general I would assert that what most users do online has nothing to do with crime, and while picking a particular scenario, it is necessary to remember that the Internet is a business, and its development is driven  by business interests in the first place,” – concluded S. Sokolova.

The climax of RIGF-2011 was marked by a public lecture by David Farber, Professor at the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, former member of the US Presidential Advisory Committee on Information technologies, communication, IT and Internet development, which was attended by both the Internet Governance Forum participants and  SviazExpokom-2011 exhibition visitors. Prof. Farber’s presentation focused on the issue of Government, Business and Citizens: Opponents in the Internet Environment?  and dealt with various aspects of activity in the Internet environment.  In his lecture, David Farber elaborated on the history of the Internet – he was one of those who had been making it. He also touched on the current state of the Net and highlighted on its main aspects, including integrity of privacy of users, network governance, and government agencies’ plans to collect some information for the sake of protection of their countries and/or control over their citizens. “Technologies are very tough and their impact on society is by far greater than we can imagine,” – said D. Farber. At the same time, he maintained that one of the main issues, which today concerns users, business, and the state - is the online security. “But when we created the Internet, the last thing we thought about was security. It is impossible to ensure a ubiquitous security for all– and this is worth bearing in mind by governments keen to take on anything they deem dangerous.”

Photo gallery