A panel dedicated to summarising  the public discussions over the Concept of Second-Level Domain Name Registration in the .MOSCOW and .МОСКВА Domains was held on the 21st of May 2013 within the framework of the Russian Communication Days Conference organised at the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation.

The panel started with the speech of Alexander Panov, President of the Foundation for Assistance for Internet Technologies and Infrastructure Development. He extended his gratitude to the Internet community representatives for their involvement in the Concept development and outlined the prospects for using the .MOSCOW and .МОСКВА domain extensions as a basis for the unified information space of the Russian capital, which is currently worked on by the Moscow Government.

Dmitry Burkov, the Foundation Board Chairman, briefed the panel attendants on the proposed changes in the Concept following the results of its public deliberation.

According to Dmitry Burkov, the Concept updates, in general, deal with the Sunrise domain name registration period for trademark holders. A provision is scheduled for document amendment, under which the trademark owners will get the right to block during the Sunrise Period any domains coinciding with their TMs for the purpose of protecting the said TMs against any illegitimate use by third parties. Besides, the Sunrise Period will give priority in registration of the domain names coinciding with trademarks to the owners of the TMs officially protected in Russia.

The Concept version incorporating the said amendments is to be reviewed by the Foundation Board at its meeting on the 23rd of May 2013.

While speaking at the Conference, Dmitry Burkov also mentioned that city domain introduction is a worldwide trend. The world’s major metropolitan areas are interested in getting their own TLDs today to use them as an efficient territorial marketing tool.

Sergey Ovcharenko, Executive Director of the Foundation for Internet Development, which is the .SU TLD registry, shared with the panel participants his vision of the existing domain extensions’ development prospects after .MOSCOW, .МОСКВА and other new top-level domains are implemented.

In his opinion, the New gTLD Program will result in a higher domain market competition and, therefore, encourage the TLD registries to improve terms and conditions for their extensions. In particular, the Foundation for Internet Development is busy today updating the regulatory documentation covering the .SU TLD to streamline the domain name registration procedure and make it more “registrant-friendly”.

Urvan Parfentiev, who represented the Safer Internet Centre, also spoke at the panel and expressed his hope that the .MOSCOW and .МОСКВА TLDs would deploy the practices to combat illegal content, which are being successfully used by the market players in the existing domain extensions.

Vera Chudinova, Chief Research Associate of the Russian State Children’s Library, took part in the discussions, too. She noted some good prospects for the .MOSCOW and .МОСКВА TLDs in terms of using them for educational and formative Internet resources and stressed that the extensions would facilitate Internet search and identification of the Moscow-related content.

At the end of the panel FAITID representatives informed about the plans to organise The .MOSCOW and .МОСКВА TLDs Week, a series of events aimed at the extensions’ promotion. The events to be held in Moscow in September 2013 and coincide with the City Day celebration. As a part of the Week FAITID will host a meeting of the group that unites the applicants for the geographical top-level domains (GeoTLDs). FAITID is a member of this group.