Renowned domain industry experts to speak at TLDCON 2018

The agenda of the 11th International Conference of ccTLD Registries and Registrars of the CIS, Central and Eastern Europe has been developed. This year it will be very busy. The TLDCON 2018 conference will include speeches by domain experts from Russia, Latvia, the US, Canada, Ireland, the Czech Republic, Armenia, the Republic of Belarus, Ukraine, Serbia and others. The main topics are the security of the domain space, interaction between the domain industry and copyright owners, the development of national domains, DNS and new technology. In addition, on the second day of the conference representatives of Russian and foreign registries will gather to discuss the models of registration business.

The Domain VS Content section on information security will be devoted to the work with domains that are used for illegal purposes. The section will bring together registry experts from the CIS countries, Europe, North America, as well as representatives of international organizations and information security experts: ICANN's Senior Director of Security, Stability and Resiliency John Crain, founder and CEO of iThreat Cyber Group and SSAC member Jeffrey R. Bedser, and head of the Canadian think tank Secure Domain Foundation Norm Ritchie. For the first time, the analysis and forecast for domain name usage will be discussed at TLDCON. The forecasting tools help to detect before the delegation whether it would be used for illegal purposes and thus make this domain name the focus of attention of security experts and lower the risks for the users. In this section, Russia will be represented by Pavel Shepetina from Group-IB and Alexander Venedyukhin from the Technical Center of Internet.

Another section, Legal Issues of Domain Registration, will feature a heated discussion between industry representatives and stakeholders. Yekaterina Kalinicheva, head of the intellectual property protection division at Semenov&Pevzner, will represent the latter group. For the first time in the history of TLDCON, a stakeholder is taking part in a relevant domain event to express their opinion whether registrars should be responsible for content.

The DNS and New Technology section will have speeches by representatives of Rostelecom Group: the Technical Center of Internet, Ngenix and MSK-IX. They will speak about how new technology such as blockchain, CDN and new ways to identify users, are used for the development of the domain space and the benefits for the users and the domain business. John Crain will explain to the audience how to protect DNS while using new technology. Representative of .ART domain Sergei Baukin will present a practical case of the use of DNS in works of art authentication.

At the National Domains’ New Lease of Life section representatives of national registries of Ukraine and Belarus, on one side, and the registries of the new domains Afilias and .ART on the other side will discuss current marketing approaches to promoting top-level domain names. The section will reveal how the domain role is changing today and what new uses there are. In addition, Andrei Kuzmichev from RU-CENTER will evaluate the current situation from the point of view of a registrar.

TLDCON 2018 will conclude with a meeting of Registrars Club: Welcome or Members Only? where participants will discuss various business models of registrars, accreditation requirements, differences and similarities of work in national and general top-level domains. Representatives of Russian and Armenian registries, ICANN experts and experienced and new registrars will speak about new models. This many-sided view can help understand the nuances of the work of accredited registrars.

The TLDCON 11th International Conference of ccTLD Registries and Registrars of the CIS, Central and Eastern Europe will take place in Jurmala, Latvia, on September 12-13. Participating at the conference is free but registration is obligatory.