Russia Connected for 15 Years

As of this year, Russia has been officially a part of the World Wide Web for fifteen years with its Internet domain, .RU.  The .RU code was developed out of an agreement signed in December 1993 by prominent Russian Internet providers, “The order of RU top-level domain administration”.

Then, on April, 7, 1994 .RU was finally registered on the Internet Network Information Center (InterNIC. The .RU code represents the Russian federation. The first website with the national domain was www.1-9-9-4.ru . This site still exists today on Runet, which is another name for Russian Internet.

Before using the .RU domain, Russia had been using .SU, which stood for Soviet Union.  Then in 1993 it wanted its own state domain code, and was assigned the .RU code by the Russian Institute for Public Networks (RIPN), which was a scientific institution. However, Russia was not the first Soviet Union Republic to obtain a national representative domain.  Lithuania, Georgia, Estonia and Ukraine all obtained domains in 1992, and Latvia and Azerbaijan obtained domains earlier than Russia in 1993.

Yet, the .RU domain code still seems to be running successfully, and the RU-Center, the regional network service provider still exists.

Julianne Kriner

Russia 

Italy: Prime Minister Berlusconi Attempts to "Regulate Internet"

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi wants to push for an agreement to regulate the internet through the G8.

The G8 is actually the Group of Eight, which is a forum for governments of eight nations from the north hemisphere, including Canada, France, Italy, Germany, Russia, Japan, the U.K. and the U.S.A. The group discusses issues of mutual or global concern, and it is through this that Berlusconi hopes to use his country's position in the G8 to push for international coercion on internet regulation.

The main issue at hand is that this is an inherent conflict of interest because Silvio Berlusconi is not only Italy's senior G8 leader, the Prime Minister and Italy's richest man, but also the main controller of Italy's media, owning (both directly and indirectly) 90% of Italian media.

According to La Stampa, attempts at internet regulation will be protested by bloggers who will display anti-Berlusconi banners on their blogs and websites. Berlusconi's attempts to get other countries to follow in internet regulation are a direct violation of the protection of freedom of speech, as well as various other press freedom indices.

- Jamie Bezozo
Country: Italy