PRESS: Russian govt could gain control over natl domains center

MOSCOW, Aug 18 (PRIME) -- The Russian government could take control over the Coordination Center for TLD RU, which is in charge of domains .ru and .ðô., which would destabilize the country’s domain infrastructure, as experts said, business daily Kommersant reported Thursday.

Several people close to the matter said a reform of the Coordination Center was discussed at a meeting held by the Communications and Mass Media Ministry in late July. Representatives of the Federal Security Service, the Finance Ministry, the Federal Tax Service and the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology, and Mass Media participated in the meeting.

The center is thought to be “actually liquidated” to the benefit of a new projected law on an autonomous system of the Russian Internet, one of the sources said.

“The authorities decided to redistribute all technical functions of the Coordination Center and the Internet Technical Center (75%-owned by the center and 25%-owned by the Internet Development Fund) and their financial flows,” the source said.

There are four main bidders for the center’s powers: state-controlled telecom giant Rostelecom, research and development institute Voskhod, telecom infrastructure developer Giprosvyaz, and the Radio Research and Development Institute.

“Presidential aide Igor Shchyogolev is lobbying the option with Rostelecom, and Deputy Communication Minister Alexei Sokolov with Voskhod,” the source said. “From the point of view of the modification’s authors, it’s just commerce, a business, which they want to manage.”

Another source said all participants of the meeting faced the ready-made fact amid no talks being held.

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