Internet governance

The definition of the domain, based on the Methodological Guideline for the Usage of Technical Terms in the Information Society Area, published by the Ministry of Finance SR is:

"Identification of the subject or assembly of subjects in the internet network, domains are defined by their IP address. All technical means sharing the same IP address use the same domain"

Domains are divided to first level domains (i.e. those completely on the right like ".com", ".net", ".sk", ".cz"), second level domains (i.e. one step to the left like "mfsr.sk" or "informatizacia.sk"), third level domains (i.e. another step to the left like "jano.zoznam.sk" or "portal.gov.sk") etc. First level domains are also called Top Level Domains (TLDs).

Domains are classified from the content point of view to domains belonging to countries and governed areas (Country Code Top Level Domain = ccTLD) and generic top level domains (gTLD). The latter are domains like ".com", ".org", ".net" etc.

Internet Governance

Domain management is often known under the name internet governance and this topic is even more dynamic nowadays. The reasons are topics like migration from the protocol IPv4 to IPv6 or creation of so called "web 2.0". Statistics for IPv4 declare that address space using this protocol will be spent by 2012.

European Union gives great importance to this theme, which is reflected by many meetings under the "Future of internet" umbrella.

Organizations and reprezentation of SR

Internet Governance Forum (IGF) is annually organized at various places all over the world (having thousands of participants). Its creation was based on the conclusions to ministerial conference WSIS II in Tunis.

The most important organization in this field is ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), which supervises the internet governance on the global level. ICANN created several advisory bodies, one of which is a body representing governments - Government Advisory Committee (GAC) - delegate in GAC is representative of the Ministry of Finance SR (e-mail contact is gac@mfsr.sk).

A step lower is TLD manager - Slovak's TLD is domain ".sk". Its sponsoring organization and technical contact is SK-NIC, a. s.  company in the cooperation with the Slovak government (Ministry of Finance of the Slovak Republic), where SK-NIC, a.s. manages the technical aspects (registrations etc.) and MF SR is an administrative contact and has some other powers.

Specific group, established by European Union, is High-level Group on Internet Governance (HLIG), which overviews the Member States' national policies and legislation in the internet governance area, and serves as a basis for preparation of the EU statements. Delegate in this group is representative of MF SR as well.

MF SR is also a responsible body in regard to TLD ".eu" and manages list of reserved (blocked) names. The address of the ".eu" domain is www.eurid.eu, where more information can be found.