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CECUA has been invited to join EURid and also become a member of the EURid
strategic committee. EURid, the European Registry of Internet Domain Names,
manages the .eu top-level Internet domain under contract to the European
Commission. CECUA was involved in the discussions which led up to the
establishing of EURid and hopes to be able to add value by providing the
point of view of users and citizens in the EU arena.CECUA will be
represented by Dr. Jon Thorhallsson CECUA President.

Digital World 2025

The European Parliament Internet foundation, EIF for short, is promoting
ongoing discussion on the importance and development of the digital
revolution and including all stakeholders, European Parliament, European
Commission, Member state Parliaments and Governments, industry and
users/citizens to name a few.

The ongoing discussion on reforming ICANN has opened the eyes of thousands of people to the need for good Internet Governance. But what is good Internet governance? Currently, the Internet is governed by a small group of interested parties and the decision process is not transparent and does not involve users, consumers and many other stakeholders.

CECUA has led the discussion about Internet Governance from the user point of view focusing on the needs of citizen, consumer and small business users. This involves many issues, some technical but mostly non-technical.

The European Commission is in the process of commissioning a study into Internet Governance and in parallel with this has organised Conference calls with representatives from European business and users associations active in the ICANN Reform process. Those Conference Calls have been followed up by a series of face-to-face meetings.

CECUA is supporting this initiative by dedicating its home page to Internet Governance issues by publishing relevant information including updates on the Commission initiative.

European Internet Governance News
An Information Society for all
What does it really mean?
By Prof. Jon Thorhallsson
Baltic IT& T Review
Download Pdf File

Identity, trust and confidence, security in a digital world
Remarks at the roundtable by Imants Freibergs, President of the Latvian Information Technologies and Telecommunications Association (LITTA)

Introduction
LITTA is a non-governmental professional association with

- corporate members, ICT related companies, universities
- individual members, ICT professionals, educators

LITTA's mission is twofold:
1. Promoting the development of Information Society and representing the interests of Internet users. We have actively participated in the PrepComs of the Geneva WSIS, where Latvia was represented at the highest presidential level, and we will continue to work towards the Tunis 2005 summit.

2. Promoting the Latvian ICT industry, representing the ICT product and service suppliers and paving the way for e-commerce in the enlarged EU.

Note. Latvia is a country of 2,35 million inhabitants, on the Baltic Sea, joining EU and NATO in May 2004. Internet usage has reached 40% of the economically active population, the mobile phone penetration stands at 50%.

The registry of ccLTD.lv holds about 20 000 .lv domain names. It is managed by the Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Latvia, a non-profit, state-owned academic institution, with links to global DNS servers. Our experience shows that an academic institution can provide flexible, reliable, legally acceptable domain registration services that balance the interests of private enterprises and of individuals vs public needs.

Moreover about 10 other web hosting companies exist in Latvia for .com, .net, .biz domain names.

Internet governance issues

The Internet is a modern distributed communications medium. It is the support for a Global Information society. It is somewhat misleading to use the term 'Internet Governance' when such a network is not a single entity to govern. It would be more useful to refer to 'Internet Coordination' and cooperation.

The governance issues are twofold:

- Technological governance issues, such as coordination of Internet protocol standards, allocation of resources (IP addresses, top-level domain names, DNS, RIR and ccTLD registries, etc.), and elaboration of Internet architecture.

- Legal governance issues, such as coordination of the policies preventing misuse of the Internet (i.e. SPAM) and a wide ranging regulatory agenda.

LITTA considers some of the following important.

Internet accessibility and usability issues

Policies are needed to establish Internet as a Universal service, as a fundamental right of citizens that is physically available and economically affordable. Citizens should be able to freely access all public domain information, subject only to copyright legislation.

To prevent social exclusion, simple to use and stable user-interfaces should be provided, avoiding excessively high levels of usage skills. Planned technological advances must balance the stability of the current Internet with future demands and evolving usage patterns.

Cultural issues

The importance of linguistic and cultural diversity on the Internet cannot be underestimated, particularly for small languages (1,5 million Latvian language speakers). Individuals and businesses have the right to communicate in their own language.

Legislation and tools should be made available for widespread systems and applications software localisation. The risk of cultural colonisation by major languages (mainly English) must be countered by smaller nations in order to survive in Cyberspace. E-services have to be provided in local languages. Local language e-content is essential to develop and extend the Information society globally.

People have the right to use their specific character sets for domain names, with Latvian diacritics. We support the work on IDN and the Punycode standard.

Individual rights issues

Freedom of expression on the Internet is a fundamental right, but subjected to Netiquette and restrained by the limits of the law (against child pornography, racial hate literature).

Personal information should be protected and conform to the Data Protection Directive, to be enforced by the ISP's.

An individual has the right to his full legal name as domain name, above the rights of cybersquatters and profiteers.
[In Latvia, applicants within the country are given priority to .lv domains. Companies inscribed in the Enterprise Registry and Trade Marks may only have domain names by their legal owners.]

There is a need for IPv6 deployment to make a sufficient number of addresses available for all individuals. The University of Latvia is ready for IPv6 pilot projects.

Within EU the legislation should be harmonised to facilitate e-business expansion and promote regional growth and development.
EU citizens should not be subject to US or other country's legislation.

User and government representation on ICANN and other regulatory bodies.

User and business associations (NGO) should be represented directly, not only through their national governments.

Caution. Some governments in power have the objective to control and restrict the individual freedom of expression on the Internet, and wish to impose censorship rules. All governments should sign and adhere to Internet user's "Bill of rights".

It is often the case that some countries with the loudest voices actually have low Internet penetration and usage. Their voice in governance decision-making should be pondered accordingly. "One country equals one vote" rule should not always apply on governance boards.

There is a greater need for cooperation between various branches of government and law enforcement in and between countries. Civil society should be fully involved and take part in the process.

Toward an intangible goods economy
Software as a revenue driver. Should it be protected?
The current evolution toward an intangible goods economy has led to a strong legal evolution since the very symbolic date of "unbundling", July 1st 1972. Since this date, IBM has considered that software has a tangible value and decided to sell separately software and hardware (unbundling).
This model has been developing more and more, for example Sega takes more revenue from software (the games) than from hardware (the play stations)

So, there co-exist on the one hand industrial and patrimony protections: Trade secret protection, Patent protection, Copyright protection, Employment contract, Marketing protection, Trade marks protection, Criminal sanctions for computer theft, Data personal protection (data privacy), and on the other hand "no protection " (i.e. Freeware, Open source software).

One of the key questions involved is if patent ability, in the twenty-first century should be considered in the same terms as it was in the nineteenth or twentieth centuries? For more on this subject see 1

On Wednesday September 24th 2003, the European Parliament adopted the patent proposal directive on Patent ability of computer-implemented inventions at the first reading. It is really a fundamental step forward to reduce the gap in the Information Society development between Europe and other areas (mainly US and Japan).

Michel Planchons-----------------------------------------------------------------------------Alain Moscowitz
Inforep Director -------------------------------------------------------------------------------CECUA Vice-President
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------alain.moscowitz@cecua.org

1See new INPI publication : « Protéger les inventions de demain, Biotechnologies, logiciels et méthodes » Collection « Propriété intellectuelle » sous la direction du Professeur Michel VIVANT, La documentation française, Paris 2003.

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EU goes extraterritorial
The start if Internet Governance - or Law War?
Are the politicians becoming aware of the Internet at last? There have been two developments from European legislators recently which indicate that somebody has realised that the wild west of the Internet is out of control, and that there is money to be made.

The first decision is for all Europeans to be charged VAT at a European rate even if the supplier is not in the European Union. This is a very interesting situation, because it is the first example of European extra territoriality of legislation. Now after many years of complaining that the US applied its laws outside its territories (anybody out there remember COCOM?) the European Parliament suddenly has accepted the principle of extra-territoriality! The worrying thing is how are they going to enforce this law. Large organisations are being encouraged to set up trading centres within Europe (Luxemburg being the most popular as it has the lowest rate of VAT). So this effectively cuts out SMEs! Has the European Parliament accepted that it will only collect a small part of the VAT and that any VAT collected by companies outside Europe will be paid to Brussels (or kept in their pockets!). What provision has it made for sanctions against those non-European traders who will not collect VAT for Brussels because it affects their competitiveness?

Other legislation concerns SPAM. European law will demand the customers will need to "opt in" for receiving SPAM. However, the Directive makes a distinction between a "natural person" and a "legal entity" (a natural person including a sole trader and a Partnership) So it will be ok for a legal entity to "advertise" in the UK but illegal for a "natural person" to do so. In practice, it would seem that this legislation is, however, pretty useless as it only applies to personal e-mail accounts! It is difficult to see what this Directive is trying to achieve. It has failed to recognise the International nature of the Internet and it would seem that all spammers need to do is to register as a company or live outside Europe - and I guess that that covers most of the active spammers anyway! The other downside is how can sole traders, Partnerships and enterprising individuals get started. How can they approach potential customers if they have to wait until you have contacted them? Is this going to be another barrier to business for micro-enterprises? Is this another coup for large organisations and corporate bodies? Is this going to have the slightest effect on the overwhelming and constant waste of Internet capacity on the amount of SPAM that the private individual receives?

On the other hand, the US proposes to have an "opt out" system which means that all advertisers can send out one e-mail to which the recipient must reply to bar future SPAM. This method certainly protects the position of advertisers but what does it do for the poor consumer? Unscrupulous advertisers already have an answer. They keep changing their name! Further, the user is now encouraged to "opt out" which provides the advertiser with the very valuable information that the address is active! Further, by buying a few more cheap servers, it is possible to flood the system with even more e-mails by advertisers changing their domain name every few hours (or even minutes) - a thing which is now very easy to do with very cheap hardware! This has been made even easier with the proliferation of TLDs in the last few weeks and the implementation of IPv6 - everybody will be able to have thousands of addresses, and the poor consumer will not be able to use his computer because it is clogged up with SPAM! Anyway, what are these governments going to do if the domains are registered outside their territories? Send the army in?

Currently, issues concerning Internet governance are being ignored. Partly because of commercial interests. Partly because of security issues. And partly because of the failure of politicians to understand the significance and technicalities of the Internet.

Internet governance is a global issue. National legislation is not the answer and can never produce the results that well-intentioned politicians require. There has to be an international solution with International agreement before the questions of taxation and SPAM can be tackled - and the many other concerns itemised in the CECUA "Draft Bill of Rights" (see www.CECUA.org)

CECUA could have saved the US government and the European Parliament a lot of money, because legislation is not the way forward - at least not at a national or regional level.

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German Federal Court decides:
"First come, first serve" rule is out when it comes to personal names on the Internet.

CECUA welcomes this landmark court decision on an important human rights issue.

In Germany personal names now have the same protection as trademarks when used as Domain-Names. The use of a personal names by individuals themselves has priority over the use of the same name as an alias. A person who wishes to use their own personal or family name in the address of their Internet homepage now has priority over the user of an alias with the same character combination.

In the year 2000, a lawyer, with the family name MAXEM, wanted to promote his office by using a homepage on the internet with the domain name "www.maxem.de". However, this domain name had already been registered in 1990 by an individual who had made up the name "maxem" by using a combination of characters of the first names of his grandfather, his father and his own first name for use as his domain name on the Internet. Two earlier decisions in lower courts decided that the rights to use a domain name belonged on a "first come, first serve" basis. However, the German Federal Court (" Bundesgerichtshof ", the highest level German Court) has overturned these earlier rulings and has now decided that in this case, the rights to the domain name belong to the holder of the name which is in general use and who is generally known by that name. An alias is also protected by the same rights but if that name is only used on the Internet as a domain name and is not generally used and known elsewhere, it has fewer rights. Therefore the owner of the personal name has priority and the overall right to use his/her name as part of the domain name. The rights to a personal name are not protected in every situation - only in those situations involving a domain name because in these cases, the individual would be prevented from using his/her own name on the Internet. This needs to be viewed as a violation of human rights.

With this decision, the highest German Court expressed its conviction that the Human Right of a person to use his name in his community also needs to be taken into consideration by the Internet Community.

This is exactly what CECUA, the only independent User and IT Consumer organisation, has been fighting for since proposing a "Bill of Rights for Citizens of the Information Society " in 1998 (see www.CECUA.org) and proclaiming the right to use one's name is a key user / IT consumer issue in Internet Governance.

Internet users in Germany have been waiting a long time for this decision because it affects other user issues. For example in Germany, a large number of family names are written using the same character combination. Large media companies have registered all family names which appear more than fifty times in the national telephone directory in order to sell the right to these names later at a profit. This judgement is important for all users of the Internet in Germany and gives their personal name the same level of protection that normally belongs to the holders of brand-names and trademarks. It will be interesting to see how this high level German court decision will influence these rights within the European Community.

CECUA sees this case as going some way to establishing the right of an individual to use their own name as part of an Internet address and also curbing the activities of cyber squatters. Furthermore, CECUA hopes that this view will be adopted in other countries throughout Europe and urges its National Computer User's Associations to pursue this important matter on their home front. The landmark decision by Germany's highest court recognising that human rights also apply to the Internet goes a way towards establishing a European Internet region of Trust and Confidence. But of course this is not a European issue only. This is really a global issue. And it is nice to see Europe pave the way for others to follow.

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One set of rules for all types of Media - Germany leads the way!
Traditionally governments have controlled information by setting up censor boards for each section of the media industry such as the press, film industry, TV etc. to control both access to and the content of certain types of information. These boards have been independent and as a consequence have developed different standards and practices for defining what is allowable and what is not allowable. This has led to a confusing array of incompatible rules and regulations according to how information is published. Further the regulations and standards vary from one country to another. This situation is further aggravated by the convergence of the media through digital technology and the advent of the Internet which is global.

As part of the "Interstate Treaty on the Protection of Minors and Human Dignity", German legislators have made a fundamental change in specifying that the regulations apply to "all electronic communication and information services".

To the best of my knowledge, this is the first that legislators have broken away from the practice of regulating information by the type of medium rather than on the content of the information.

Traditionally, the media has different regulatory bodies and different regulations for the press, TV, film industry etc. Now that the Internet is also a significant publisher of information to the general public, there is an increasing need for similar regulations to protect the interest of the general public as well as the interests of minors. It is hoped that legislators will follow the German lead by regulating media content rather than setting up yet another regulatory body with different rules and different standards!

With the advent of the Internet there are many issues of concerns to government, legislators, politicians, security forces, etc. - and of course the general public. Currently, the Internet is like the "Wild West" - it is brand new territory which is largely ruled by anarchists, dominated by commercial interests and is probably is forcing the fastest changes to society that has ever been encountered in the history of mankind.

The Internationality of the Internet - or is it dominance by one or two major nations - is running roughshod over all the national controls and legislation and societal values. Clearly the time has come for some control and respect for the rights of sovereign states and citizens.

One of the areas which has been of international concern recently is the question of controlling access by children to the vast amount of pornography, including child pornography. One of the problems in doing this has been that there are no agreed standards as to what is and what is not acceptable. A further complication has been that there is no agreement between the various regulatory bodies for the press, TV and film industry etc. as to what is and what is not acceptable leading to frustration and confusion by all players.

In the past, it has been accepted that there are different levels of acceptability dependent on age. So for example, the film industry had rating systems assuming that access to the material would be controlled by cinemas restricting those under age from viewing certain films. The TV has approached this problem by screening unsuitable after a certain time assuming the parents will have put them to bed! The press asked newsagents to put unsuitable material on the top shelf assuming that children could not reach. All these measures were not effective and this has been brought to a head by the Internet. Children are able to access a very wide range of material at any time from their bedroom. Further, parents generally do not have enough skills to be able to control what their children download from the Internet.

The German legislators, by focusing on the information content rather than the medium, have solved many problems at once. They no longer have to worry about many regulatory boards coming to different conclusions on the same material. They have a consistent set of standards across all types of media. They have made the regulations "future proof" to a certain extent so that they do not have to consider future developments in the information/entertainment industry.

CECUA welcomes this significant step forward and hopes that Germany extends this principle to all published material. Above all, it hopes that other legislators will take note of this step forward - particularly those involved in the forthcoming dot eu domain. Let us now pressure politicians, legislators and all those concerned to make the Internet a safe and enjoyable place to live, work and play for at least our European citizens.

CECUA thanks the PCMLP Self-Regulation Review (January 2003) for highlighting this development.

Stuart Goold, CECUA Secretary General
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ICANN Reform - What do they really want from the users?
ICANN is looking out for Internet user involvement. As a matter of fact ICANN is preparing to set up an At Large Organisation or ALO for short. This comes after years of haggling over user involvement and representation in ICANN.

The At Large Organisation is to be organised by regions with a Regional At Large Organisation, RALO for short, in each region. One of those regions is Europe.

For many years CECUA has been advocating a stronger involvement of users in ICANN. Although ICANN mainly concerns itself with technical issues there are also public policy issues involved. And public policy issues definitely call for user involvement and participation. Therefore, CECUA is very pleased with this development. But so far it is only theory. How is the theory going to be put into practice?

First what does ICANN really want? Do they want a small group? Maybe a sounding board only? Or does ICANN want a real user representation with own opinions on user issues and ready to argue and defend them?

CECUA feels the former is not an option at this stage and age. The latter is the only choice for ICANN. Here are two key issues to be addressed: organisation and funding.

The potential membership for European RALO is tens of millions of people in dozens of countries with different languages and cultures. For RALO to become successful how many people have to join? What is the critical mass of people for RALO Europe? Obviously we are talking big numbers, millions or tens of millions. Starting from scratch it will take years of work to get such an organisation up and running. And it will also cost millions and millions of €. And where are those € coming from?

Another approach is to ask for cooperation from already existing organisations, CECUA, ISOC to name a few. Those organisations already have an outreach to millions of users and this outreach could be extended to include RALO issues as well. This will only cost a fraction of starting from scratch and it can be done over a relatively short period of time. However, it still calls for funds to become successful. The organisations involved have a small budget which does not allow for this new activity. New funding mechanisms are therefore is absolutely necessary.

CECUA is prepared to participate in such a cooperative venture with other organisations to get RALO into gear.

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User Involvement in ICT Policy -
Field Proven Framework for Action
CECUA has been drawing attention to various Internet Governance policy issues calling for user involvement. But how is the user involvement going to be organised? Do we already have a framework or do we need to invent one?
Yes, we do have a framework. I am referring to the MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) for ICT Partnership already signed by about 50 user associations, CECUA and ISOC being among those signatories. Indeed, CECUA as the Chair of Round Table 2 entitled "Citizens Needs for World Wide Basic Services", first drew the attention of the Internet Community to the fears, hopes and Rights of European Citizens in the Global Information Society.
In 1993, the Commission brought together User Associations and their representatives and industry to discuss user involvement in ICT policy. Some of the highlights are:
· All participants agreed on the document "User involvement in ICT Policy" which analyses the situation of ICT users and their future role. It also sets out the ways and means to improve the cooperation between the various ICT actors: users, vendors and Commission services.
· The participants also decided to cooperate. They agreed on a Memorandum of Understanding called "A Partnership in ICT" specifying the principles guiding such cooperation. To date, approximately 50 associations have signed the MoU.
· The Commission will fully support the associations in the implementation of the Memorandum (as set out in the corresponding letter).

In the corresponding letter the Commission states that it will ensure that associations with an interest in a given subject have the opportunity to express their views and this will enable the Commission to draw up balanced proposals.
Those are only the highlights. For full details see: http://www.cecua.org/ict/backgrnd/index.html

CECUA believes that the framework as defined in the MoU could become very useful in the coming year. User involvement is a must for the Study on Internet Governance and for dotEU Public Policy making, etc. It will save time and resources to use the already existing and recognised MoU. There is really no reason to reinvent the wheel.

But the MoU also has other applications. Associations involved in the ICANN at Large Regional Organisation could do very well to look to the MoU to formalise their co-operation and working together.

CECUA wishes all visitors to the CECUA website a happy and prosperous New Year thanking them for their ongoing support.

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"eGovernment by 2010: From Utopia to Realisation"
eGovernment and its relationship to IST has become a topic of major importance. Several hundred people attended the session on "eGovernment by 2010: From Utopia to Realisation" to listen to prominent panellists and participate in the discussion.

Lone Dybkjær, MEP, spoke about the various societal issues which will affect the realisation of the technical vision. For her the key issue was the needs of people not the needs of technology. The "Realisation of eGovernment is NOT only a question of technology but one of MOTIVATING CITIZENS"
André Satini, Mayor of Issy-les-Moulineaux also stressed that winning the support of the citizen as the key issue or, as he put it, "e- Government is more an issue of transformation of the relationship with citizens than a technological challenge"

Both Lone Dybkjær and André Satini speak from a background of practical experience, Lone Dybkjær from her work on Digital Denmark and André Satini from being President of the Global Cities Dialogue.

This indicates a clear shift from the purely technological orientation of the past to a more citizen oriented approach. However, there should be no misunderstanding here. Technology is important. But Technology needs customers/citizens and ultimately users to sell and generate revenue. And users need technology to improve their lives and well-being.

It seems that we are now moving towards a more balanced approach recognizing that both parties have a role to play: Users and Technologists. This is something CECUA has been fighting for several years and will continue to fight for. CECUA welcomes this shift in emphasis and wholeheartedly supports the new equilibrium between users and technology.

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Commission launches an Internet Governance Study
What is Internet Governance? According Longman's Modern English Dictionary and also Chamber's Dictionary Governance is defined as control, authority, government, direction, and behaviour. Thus, Internet Governance means Internet control or authority. But this definition allows a wide scope of interpretation. Is it assigning Internet names to IP numbers? Is it controlling and having authority over the national and international Internet infrastructure? Or is it having authority over and controlling that the Internet is responsive to the interests of the public? This is a very wide range indeed from an administrative task on one hand to a political one on the other. To study and come to a better understanding of Internet Governance is a worthy task.

Earlier this year the Commission put out a call for tenders for a study on organization and management of Internet: role, competence and membership of ICANN. For the full document please go to
Commission Call for Tenders.

CECUA welcomes the initiative taken by the Commission as an important step toward a better understanding of the scope and multitude of issues involved in Internet Governance. And this study can only be the beginning of a much larger undertaking to really understand what is involved, what needs to be done and how it can be done. The Commission study is an important starting point. And the Commission Study starts with ICANN: its role, its competence and structure, its possible evolution and the international framework related to the present and future management of the Internet. This makes out for a good start but only a start.

The concerns and expectations of the end-user is one of the major issues that needs to be carefully studied. The end users are, in Internet lingo, also frequently referred to as the Internet Community. The ICANN Government Advisory Committee (GAC) in its communiqué from Bucharest this summer broadened the definition of the term Internet Community by interpreting the term to refer to all of those who are affected, now or in the future, by the operation of the Internet. In practical terms this means all citizens, both private and corporate. And those citizens have their expectations and also concerns that need to be taken into account. CECUA has been researching this area and based on its own research CECUA has published a document: European Internet Governance - User Requirements, listing several end-user or Internet Community issues that urgently need to be addressed. For the full document please go to:
Internet Governance - User Requirements

CECUA hopes that this document will provide an input and starting point for the Study to be conducted by the Commission since it provides an insight and understanding of what the user needs and wants from the Internet.

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Commission Public Consultation on dotEU -
Good start but only a start
The European Commission has recently posted a questionnaire "seeking the views of the public on what can be done to counter speculative and abusive registration of domain names in the future ".eu" TLD. http://europa.eu.int/yourvoice/cybersquatting_en.htm
Hopefully this is only the start of an organised consultation process to give dot EU a real chance to become a truly European Internet region of trust and confidence.

There is a multitude of issues that need to be discussed. Those issues fall into two broad categories: operational and public policy. While the operational issues are relatively well understood the public policy ones are not and call for extensive consultation, discussion and reflection.

CECUA has taken this opportunity to open the debate and cover a much wider range of factors which are necessary to ensure a ".eu" domain of trust and confidence which can be built into the public policy rules. CECUA has published draft dotEU Public Policy Recommendations outlining nine (9) issues to be discussed. CECUA invites citizens both private and public to take part in the debate. Send your comments to stuart.goold@cecua.org or jon.thorhallsson@cecua.org

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ICANN is out of the race. Who governs the Internet? CECUA calls for discussion and debate.
ICANN wins a one-year extension to MOU with USA Department of Commerce. At the same time, and very importantly, the Department has stated that that ICANN should be a technical coordination body whose policy-making role is limited; specifically ICANN should not be the government of the Internet.

With Internet now being a vital and essential part of global business and government infrastructure it is high time to start discussion and debate on Internet Governance. With ICANN out of the race who should govern the Internet? Who should make public policy?

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dotEu Open Information Day
Over 70 people gathered last week in the Brussels to attend the dotEU Open Information Day organised by the Commission. The Commission has published a call for Expression of Interest for running the dotEU Registry. And those interested better have a non-profit status and a European address. In addition to operational issues they are also faced with many public policy issues.
See the attached Commission presentation
An excellent presentation was given by Anne Troye of the Commission.

CECUA is not a dotEU contender. However, CECUA is prepared to work with any organisation sharing CECUA's goals and objectives. Those goals and objectives need to be discussed as a part of the public policy formulation.

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European business and user associations meeting
Friday 20 September from 14h.30 till 17.00 p.m.
Location: 24 avenue de Beaulieu at Brussels-Auderghem, room 0-53

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European Commission Calls for Expressions of Interest in running the ".eu"
Registry by 25 October 2002. See:

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European Commission invites the views of the public before 31 October 2002 on preventing abuse of the ".eu" domain to produce public policy rules. See:

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European Commission proposes an Information Day for those preparing an application to run the Registry of the TLD .eu in Brussels on the 20September 2002. For details see:

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Canadian Concerns about Privacy issues on the Internet Domain Name Servers.
For details see:

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The future of Internet Governance: Position papers previously published by European associations:

CECUA