At the Fourth Internet Governance Forum (IGF), in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, being held from 15 to 18 November, the European Commission once again welcomed the opening up of internet addresses to non-Latin characters. It also stressed the role governments should play in protecting public interests on the web ⁽¹⁾.

The EU executive had already welcomed the decision by the ICANN, the American body in charge of global management of the domain name system, to allow non-Latin characters. In Egypt, the ICANN announced that an accelerated procedure would be set up to allow internet addresses to use Chinese, Arabic, Cyrillic or Hebrew characters. This is good news for Europe, where the Greeks, Cypriots and Bulgarians use the Greek and Cyrillic alphabets. The EU has also made progress: its ‘.eu’ domain name will be opened, before the end of the year, to Greek and Cyrillic characters, announced Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding.

The Commission also pointed out that while the private sector – which wishes to keep its role in the ICANN – is certainly in the best position to handle the day-to-day management of domain names, “governments can and must play a role in public policy internet issues where the general public’s interest must be protected”.

In fact, governance still sparks debate. As of 30 September, the ICANN is no longer under the unilateral control of the US Trade Department but is now controlled by external review panels with the participation of governments from across the world. It has pledged to improve reporting on its activities and to give a greater right of scrutiny to non-American authorities.

The EU had been calling for this reform since 2005, and according to Reding “the ICANN should now, in theory, become more independent and more democratic”. This process needs to be monitored. “I am thinking of the billions of internet users who do not participate in governance meetings. They expect their governments to protect and promote their interests,” said the commissioner, who mentioned child protection online and the fight against fraud in e-commerce.

It is also the European position that governments have a “key role to play in keeping the internet free and open”. Reding highlighted the compromise found by MEPs and EU ministers on the right to internet access: Europeans will be entitled to a “prior, fair and impartial procedure” before measures to limit their internet access can be taken, including the right to judicial review, the presumption of innocence and the right to privacy.

⁽¹⁾ The IGF was created by the World Summit on the Information Society (2003 and 2005) to allow governments, the private sector and civil society to debate the web’s management. It has so far met in Athens (2006), Rio de Janeiro (2007) and Hyderabad (India, 2008). Viviane Reding would like to see it continue to meet at least until 2015.