Russia could soon have a representative on the board of directors of ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), the international U.S.-based domain-name authority.
The announcement was made yesterday at the second Russian Internet Governance Forum (RIGF) in Moscow.
Marina Nikerova, chairwoman of Russia’s national domain coordination center, has applied to join ICANN’s board. ICANN should complete its selection process in August 2011.
“In addition to simplifying practical aspects, this will give Russia the opportunity to participate in the decision-making process for such strategic aspects as the creation of new domain zones and the allocation of address space,” said Andrei Kolesnikov, head of the national domain coordination center. “Russia has just recently become aware of the importance of participating in such international organizations as ICANN and IETF [Internet Engineering Task Force],” he added.
A Cyrillic internationalized top-level domain for Russia, .РФ (short for “Russian Federation”), was launched in November 2011 and has been expanding vigorously, counting now over 800,000 domain names. The traditional extension .RU counts 3.3 million names.
“Russian Internet companies have grown to an international level: Mail.ru Group held its IPO; Yandex is preparing its own introduction. Their experiences and suggestions will be of interest to other countries,” said ICANN representative in Russia, Veni Markovski.
A call for a multi-stakeholder approach
In their addresses to the RIGF, Markus Kummer, Vice-President of Public Policy at the Internet Society, and Rod Beckstrom, CEO and President of ICANN, both emphasized the importance of a multi-stakeholder approach to the challenges facing the development of the Internet.
RIGF is a regional extension of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), organized by the United Nations Secretary General to provide a meeting point for industry experts, businesses, and government representatives.
Sources: Russian Internet Governance Forum, Kommersant
