On February 7, 2012 was held the third annual Safer Internet Forum timed to coincide with the International Day of Safer Internet. The Forum was organized by the Safer Internet League with the support of the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation, Russian Association for Electronic Communications (RAEC) and RIA Novosti news agency. Foundation for Assistance for Internet Technologies and Infrastructure Development became the partner of the Forum.

The event was opened with plenary session started by Igor Shchegolev, the Minister of Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation. He stressed that for issues such as Internet security all representatives of the government, business and society had to be brought together.

This model of organization was chosen in Russia one year ago, when the Safer Internet League was founded. It brought together the biggest telecom operators, representatives of Internet business, as well as public authorities.

“Concrete results of its work have already been reached and it's great that they are being achieved neither with direct restrictive measures of the government nor with repressions, but with interaction among civil society representatives, law enforcement agencies, operators, content providers”, - said Igor Shchegolev. He added that this interaction was the most correct and appropriate way.

One of the main subjects of plenary session was the issue of prohibited and negative content and ways of spread of such information. According to the Chairman of the Board of the Safer Internet League, Konstantin Malofeev, substantive progress in Web purification and protection of underage users can be reached only with consolidation of the industry efforts.  

Mikhail Yakushev, Chairman of RAEC, member of the Board of Trustees of the Foundation for Assistance for Internet Technologies and Infrastructure Development, told participants about the necessity of consolidation of legal and technical ways to deal with illegal content, and also pointed at the importance of education among users (improvement of media literacy) and self-regulation of the industry.  

As a part of the Safer Internet Forum round table of the RAEC Commission of Hosting Providers and Registrars was held. The round table began with the speech of the Board member of the Foundation for Assistance for Internet Technologies and Infrastructure Development, Dmitry Burkov, who made a presentation about the evolution of legislation that protects intellectual property on the Internet.

“International experience is very useful. We should use it but at the same time we should take into account mistakes and errors of our American and European colleagues. It is really important to correct some parts of legislation and make those Internet services immune from legal prosecution that are voluntarily taking action against the spread of illegal content”, - said Dmitry Burkov.

His speech provoked heated debates among experts that couldn't find the best mechanism for protection of interests of legal rights holders in the Russian Federation. The RAEC Commission of Hosting Providers and Registrars took a responsibility to organize a working group for the revision of Declaration of hosting providers. It became one of the first steps towards self-regulation and fight against copyright infringement, drugs promotion, child pornography and other offenses in the Internet.

Pavel Khramtsov, another member of the Board of the Foundation took park in the discussion as well. He supported the Commission's initiative to form a working group for development of recommendations for new domain names registration rules.

“The main problem of the Internet is that it is cross border, that is why it is so important to harmonize the rules of registrations in all gTLDs as well as ccTLDs. In my opinion, the rules of registration of domain names in Russia should not be different from registration rules of generic domains and new domains implemented according to New gTLD Program. As a member of the Council of the Coordination Center for TLD RU, I will raise a question in the Council about the life cycle of domain names registered in Russian national top-level domains. We will focus on successful foreign experience”, - said Pavel Khramtsov.

Photos from the Forum are available here.