On 28 June 2006 the Russian Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications hosted a meeting of the Russian interdepartmental working group on Internet governance.

The event was conducted by Maxim Timofeev, Deputy Director of the Department of International Cooperation of the Russian Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications.

During the meeting the participants discussed the activity of the Internet Governance Forum Advisory Group, which gathered on 22-23 May 2006 in Geneva. The group drew the following list of agenda items for the Internet Governance Forum planned for October-November 2006 (Athens, Greece).

• Openness: freedom of search, acquisition, transfer and use of information; access to knowledge
• Security: issues related to enhancing confidence in online environment; users protection from spam and viruses; promotion of security and protection of private information
• Diversity: promotion of multilingualism including domain names in the Internet; local content development
• Access: Internet connections, politics and price; promoting geographic diversity

During the preliminary activity of the Russian working group the following suggestions and amendments to the agenda of the forthcoming forum were outlined.

• Principles of global governmental policy on Internet governance
• Information security issues: comprehensive coverage of the problems of information security, including problems of cyber-security, spam, threat of cyber-crime, cyber-terrorism and hostile use of Internet by governments
• Access: issues related to bridging the digital divide, or the problem of gap in access to information; affordability, safety and quality of services
• Internet resources management: issues related to transition to the system of distributing address space of IP protocol according to zonal principles starting from IPV6. 

Among discussants of these issues there were Tatiana Ershova and Mikhail Yakushev, members of IIS Board.

The meeting of the Russian working group resulted in order to its members to specify the essence of each suggestion raised during the discussion more clearly within the following working week, and substantiate their necessity. After that these recommendations will be coordinated at the interdepartmental level and sent to the organizers of Athens forum as Russia’s suggestions concerning the agenda of this global meeting.