11am. Co‑operation Working Group
DESIREE MILOSHEVIC: A very warm welcome everyone this morning. Welcome to the Co‑Operation Working Group. Julf and myself will be chairing this session today and Achilleas Kemos, our co‑chair, isn't is not here with us today. We have a set of discussions prepared for you today with two remote speakers and a panel and a presenter and we will explore in these sessions some of the most timely questions and most important questions, how to govern and sustain the open internet. We are witnessing also at this RIPE 91 and we have several similar talks with the same topics shows the importance of the topics we are covering today and with that, I mean that across sectors, regions and communities there is this common challenge how to deal with innovation regulation and fundamental rights in the digital age.
So we will have with you, we'll begin with the talk with the remote speaker, RAM on Ramirez from the rootedCON association and he will take us through controversy unfolding in Spain ‑‑ and not just in Spain ‑‑ where football broadcasting rights have led to a widespread IP blocking and unintended consequences for legitimate internet users and then he will take us through a case study that is in his slides both in Spanish and English so you will have an opportunity to watch that and then we'll turn into the Europe's evolving regulatory landscape with Mike Blanche and he will take us through the Digital Networks Act which has not been published yet and in his talk decoding the DNA, he will tell us how this proposal could reshape the open internet far beyond European's borders.
Then we'll hear from Anja Gengo from the internet governance forum secretariat, how the governance is shaping in terms of the for the preparation of the world summit on the Information Society. A review, and she'll provide some global perspectives because she's also a focal point for more than 176 national internet governance forums that take place annually around the globe.
And finally but not least Eric Vyncke from the IETF will have a panel with his colleagues here about how the IETF and the RIPE NCC community could work better together whilst they develop these standards and implement them and I hope that you also have a set of questions. Please do not forget to rate all the talks and I have been told that, to remind everybody to vote in the Programme Committee election by Thursday, by 1700 local time. And if you register to vote in the NRO election, remember to vote by Friday at 9am so hopefully you will be awake or do it before then and you can chat with the NRO NC representatives today between 1.30 and 2pm and tomorrow at the meet and greet desk. So with that let's get started with our first session, La Liga gate. And private interests versus fundamental digital rights with Roman Ramirez from rootedCON association.
Roman, over to you.
ROMAN RAMIREZ: Thanks a lot and thanks for the opportunity to discuss this issue that is getting ‑‑ scaring us in Spain for the past months. I would like to be quick and just to put it in context and talk about what is happening, OK, just to to say several things that in my opinion are to be addressed for organisations and other critical organisations for net neutrality on the open internet because this is not only an issue for Spain but for the global Europe coverage of the networks. OK, so let me go for the ‑‑ in Spain today we are facing a problem of IP blocking, but it was originated from two main actors, La Liga de Futbol professional, it's like professional football that's managing broadcasting rights, this is very important thing in Spain, what is protected by IP internet property laws is not the football itself, it's not the football matches, OK, but the recording and broadcasting of these matches, the transmissions, recording and broadcasting, this is very important because at the end, you may, for example, recall a football match yourself, broadcast this openly and no one will have any right to limit this broadcasting, OK, this is very important.
What is happening? There is a lot of IPTV services, pirate signals as they use the term, but are in the middle of the matches broadcasting from many places and even they are copying the original signal from the La Liga so they are ‑‑ illicit contempt for transmission and broadcasting.
La Liga is one of the actors but the other actor is Telefonica, it's one of the biggest and main operators in Spain and it has several companies as it is a holding and one of the holding companies is this one, TSA, Telefonica Servicios Audiovisuales, that is managing football rights and several other media and content related intellectual property, very important because La Liga is the face of the problem but Telefonica is behind it. Let me show you what is happening with the court ruling.
This is the URL, sorry it is in Spanish. I translated parts of the ruling for you to get the idea that are behind the problem we are facing in Spain today, OK. So very important you can check there the full document of the court ruling.
So with this in hand, La Liga and Telefonica, they are pushing since December 2024, OK, so this problem started last year year attended we are still facing the same blocks and limitations, I will enter in the details in the next slide but the idea that this problem started in December, but we asked the court to suspend the sentence in February because it was evident, it was obvious that there were blocking innocent people and innocent websites and innocent IP addresses that are not related to IPT V for little is it broadcasting of the intellectual property so we asked the court to suspend the Sen ten, the ruling, and surprise, the court rejected our appeal and they say we have to pay for the costs, this is the text that you can see in red, at the bottom of the slide, it's not only us but Cloudflare, that the team from Claude flare, they also appealed to the same court, OK, and they rejected so we asked for clarification on the sentence and again they rejected so in March we got the final decision from the court so they don't consider any innocent problem with the people that is unrelated to the sentence so there is no cause for us to ask for the suspension of the ruling so the ruling stays, OK.
So what is the next step we took? This is the text in the top in Spanish and in the bottom in English. We have our lawyer, we go for the constitutional code in Spain, this is the highest court for fundamental rights, whenever you feel your rights are in danger, you can ask them to get involved and see if something is happening that requires some kind of protection based on what the constitution in Spain says. That, very important, is aligned with European fundamental rights acts and with the human rights declaration from United Nations, OK.
So here in May, we ask the constitutional court to give us protection because not only freedom of speech and freedom of press and freedom of starting a business on internet, that are in danger because La Liga Telefonica with blocking out any kind of limitation what is happening. Let me go to the next steps.
Why I was introducing the course, if you pay attention you will see that the source of the lawsuit that they asked for a sentence to be able to block IP addresses was, remember, La Liga and Telefonica, that they are targeting operators in Spain, you see the list, Vodaphone, Mass Orange, DIGI Telefonica and Telefonica Mobile, both companies belong to the same holding so this is something evident in my opinion but the judge that approved the court ruling seems not to think in the same way, that one company is suing the same company to force their operator, the network manager, to block things that are breaking in some way fundamental digital rights in Spain.
So this is something really strange. Just to reflect. What is happening here with a company suing itself to obey the court ruling, to do things that are against fundamental rights, OK. But at the end in the appeal, the problem with this situation was that rootedCON is organised in technological security, is there to promote cyber security and hacking things, OK, why are we in the middle of this, because no one else is doing anything. Cloudflare of course, that is the main victim of this, because most of the ranges they are blocking belongs to Cloudflare, of course they appeal, it makes sense as a company, it is protecting its interests and business interests, OK, but why are we in this thing, because no one else is doing anything. Not only, not the government, not private organisations, nor any other organisations, no one. We took the decision to get involved because we think this is really risky and dangerous for the civil society, for the citizens and for internet rights and the open internet, OK.
So why the ruling, this is in Spanish, I will give a quick explanation what's happening here. The ruling addresses that Google and Cloudflare, they are enabling ECH, if you don't know what ECH, it's quite important security measure to hide the domains, the data of the domain you are requesting when you try to establish an encrypted communication, OK, an encrypted connection. So the ruling addresses that ECH is problematic to be able to block domains. So the solution for the problem is not only block the domains but blocking IP addresses in a whole. And next, this is in Spanish again, I kept the slide for you just to get the original reference to compare the translation, OK. But they take the decision that all these companies that are requesting the blocking, they are not violating any law, so they can do the blocking, they don't interrupt the public order in any way. But most important in the sentence in the court ruling they say that no harm to third parties, innocent people. It is confirmed so, the judge rules that they can do the blocking because all these conditions they are met on the context on this scenario, OK. So in Spanish again.
For the particular and the uniqueness of the problem, they allow not only to block the list they provided to the court, to the court, to approve the blocking, but every week they can provide a dynamic list of IP addresses that they can block with the court ruling. So this is one of the biggest concerns we have because first this list of the dynamic IP addresses is redacted and prepared by La Liga and Telefonica, they take the decision of which IP addresses to place there and this is passed to the network operators and they are forced to obey the block, OK, this is one of the very most concerning things here. This dynamic list, it is affecting the public interest so the consequences there is as you remember in the court ruling: No one in third parties or no innocent IP dresses or organisations will be affected. Of course this is false, this is not what is happening; they are actually blocking IP addresses belonging to Cloudflare. As you know one single IP can host 1,000 services, but maybe one of them is, yes, an IPTV and illicit content, but what happens with the others that are innocent and they aren't doing anything? The typical reference and an example we use here is imagine there is a building where one of the studies you have a criminal and you block the whole building and interrupt all the people that is living there because you want to get this only single criminal in this story on the first floor. For example. So they are not only affecting general things, but let me show you, they are blocking for weeks to date, this website is tracking who, how and for how long they are getting blocked. OK? You can see several IP addresses that are belonging to Claude flare of course and other places but very important you see the date there, some of these IP addresses are blocked forever, not only for just the football match or blocking for this IPTV illicit service but even when the IPTV illicit service is shut down and they move to a different IP dress, it's still blocked with layer, this is just an example, it's very important, no IP service, they getting into ‑‑ you can see it there because they cannot even use the no IP service and they even blocking Vercel, Amazon AWS, GCP, they are blocking a lot of things, even they are so silly that they blocked themselves because they were using Cloudflare CDN to host several resources, that were in La Liga website, this is like a crisis situation that no one understands in Spain.
So what is happening with the blocks, OK. They will block only illicit content, no, they are blocking a lot of people, the blocking should stay for some time that, no, it's false, they are blocking for weeks, even several IP addresses and specific CDNs, they are blocked forever because we are checking regularly the IP addresses so. We don't understand what is happening here and why the government not only in Spain but in Europe is not stopping this madness, because at the end, if you check what the United Nations says in the human rights declaration, no one will be subjected to arbitrary interference. And very important, the law will be controlled and the law will be used to prevent this kind of interferences on citizens lives, very important this is from the human rights declaration but in European, you will have the article 11 that is talking about the freedom of expression and the capability to admit and to have opinions and information. So it is supposed, it is protected by the European Union for our rights, OK, but even in Spain, I will pass to the next, even in Spain, we will have several in the constitution articles, in particle the article 20, 24 and 3, they are covering us fundamental rights, what is related to freedom of speech, freedom of press, the idea that you cannot be punished without being proved guilty before, this is 24.2 and the freedom of starting a business and the freedom of businesses. This is 38.
Let me get back to other European Union rights because it's quite important. Article 16 is the same as the 38 in Spain, the freedom to conduct a business in internet for example, OK, and the article 48 is the same as the 24.2 in Spain, that you are presumed innocent until proved guilty so no one will be able or should be able to block any of my IP addresses or domains, if not proven guilty, OK.
The European Union digital rights, they are focuses in technology services, should be used to unite and not to divide people. OK. This is everything within European laws, OK.
And connectivity, this particular paragraph is focused on net neutrality and the open internet. So the problem we are facing today in Spain is not only for Spain, it's that global problem in general, in Europe, that we should address and fight because if we allow this behaviour to spread, we will face a lot of problems that relate to private interests an private companies affecting fundamental digital rights, OK, this is from the United Nations, the special relators on fundamental rights. They are addressed in this report, that encryption and anonymity are relevant for freedom of speech and for other rights and they should be protected. So the United Nations official poster is this one. OK. So let me go for the conclusions. The problem is not only for Spain, it's for Italy, for France, that they are doing different blockings, not only IP addresses blocking but DNS blocking and others. They are even preparing some kind of a document to address VPNs so you should get a scare here in this point. If they are not only blocking IP addresses affecting DNS and attacking the VPNs, we have a very bad situation in terms of the digital rights but even, this is more concerning because the child sex abuse materials, there's some rule, it is well known as chat control, they want to scan devices and local devices to be able to identify offending content or, for example, supporting documents for Palestinia or whatever, OK.
So in my opinion, having private companies interfering with encryption with the privacy of the communications, doing man in the middle in the connections, that we are seeing in behaviour in Spain, they are intercepting just open DNS channels just to see this happening here, all this together is a big problem and should be of special concern for organisations like RIPE and other organisations. So if you see DNS and HTTP and of course strong encryptions, they are good for the citizens, the only benefit of blocking is not for the citizen, it's for the criminals, because they will be able to capture traffic in internet each year. So we need to take this seriously. This is not only a problem in Spain, it's a problem that is spreading in Europe, in my opinion. Organisations like yours should take this as a priority to stop this behaviour and to press governments and the European Union, nothing else, just we need to fight at the social level, we need to inform the citizens because they don't fully understand what is happening with the networks, OK. We must make a lot of press over political representatives and in our side in rootedCON, we will release technical tools to avoid these kind of controls, making it impossible to limit the blocking, to limit the access to IP addresses because we strongly believe we need to react and protect ourselves in this situation because at the end, it seems that from the law we are not getting any particular response, OK. So thank you a lot for the opportunity and thanks for your time.
(APPLAUSE.)
JULF HELFSINGUS: OK. Any quick questions or comments?
SPEAKER: Mia. Thank you for the presentation. Really interesting. I totally agree that blocking in general is a problem, IP blocking is just really, really bad and given this is a private company, is the worst thing you can do. We had a presentation yesterday in the met group about the privacy in Italy and they did a bunch of measurements, they had the problem that the blocking list is not public. It's different in Spain, the blocking list is actually public, right, yes. So this is like, it's actually an easy way to find these services, OK. But like that at least a little bit of transparency, I think the technical community need to do right now is really to do the same kind of measurement and put like numbers at this kind of unintended effects and the problems that we see here. Like having these numbers is very valuable.
SPEAKER: Thanks a lot, I did the work on this Italian counterpart, I am glad to see that at least the Spanish is publishing the list of block addressers, I have a question that is more in the law for you, so in Italy, the law states that the service should be used predominantly for abusive services. How is this Spanish, is it exclusively or predominantly?
ROMAN RAMIREZ: It is, it should be proved that this is illicit content and La Liga to be able to add this IP address to a list to be blocked, they should have ‑‑ defined this is a problem illicit content distribution of broadcasting, not predominant but it define this particular IP address as the source of the illicit broadcasting.
SPEAKER: The law requires them to make sure the address is not used for other purposes.
ROMAN RAMIREZ: It is supposed to, in the court ruling it said no harm to third parties, innocent third parties, absolutely, you are right.
SPEAKER: Thanks a lot.
JULF HELFSINGUS: Thanks very much. Great speech, thanks.
(APPLAUSE.)
DESIREE MILOSHEVIC: And now we move onto the proposed Digital Networks Act and it's a pleasure to welcome Mike Blanche who has been building internet infrastructure for the last 30 years but also spending a lot of time in the policy realm. The DNA networks act, we'll hear more about, but it's not a new topic for us, we had we had a presentation from Namex lawyer in Rome. So Mike, the floor is yours.
MIKE BLANCHE: Thank you and good morning everybody, it's great to be here, my name is Mike, as Desiree says, I have worked in the internet infrastructure space for about 30 years. I was at Google for about 15 years. , I have been on the board of links, I am now an independent consult working on technology and policy topics for a variety of clients but anything I say here is all my own thoughts and doesn't reflect anyone I might or might not be working for. So with that disclaimer out of the way.
Let's talk a bit about telecoms regulation in Europe, right now it's a thrill topic. What do we have in place now, something called the European electronic communications code, the EEC C which is like the plumbing rules but telecoms regulation works in Europe.
The goal of it when it was introduced in short was to ensure competitive deployment and universal access to high‑speed networks. It covers traditional telecoms operators, across the EU, fixed mobile, has a little bit of stuff about OTT in inverted, commas communication services, but mainly about fixed and mobile networks provide services to consumers and ensuring competitive networks, it has a concept of significant market power which is someone who has a significant share of a market. It has obligations around sharing network; it has a whole bunch of stuff in there about consumer protection and switching and porting numbers from one operator to another and so on.
This is relatively new. It was only agreed in 2018 in Brussels. And because it's a directive, it has to be transposed into law for every single European country. And that took four years. So it's only being really in force across all of Europe for the past couple of years. And it was due to have a review at the end of this year, 2025, which would be the first review given that it's been in operation for half a dozen years or so.
But we had a European Commissioner, Thierry Breton, the guy on the right here who was in the post for the past four years up to the end of 2024. He was the CEO of France telecom. And he had a what's the best way I can diplomatically put this, had a very open‑door approach to talking to large telecoms operators in Europe, listening to their concerns, and various things were proposed by the European Commission taking account of their concerns.
And you may have heard about some of these in past talks here in the Co‑Operation Working Group, one of these in 2023 was an exploratory consultation which proposed network fees, which is where the rest of the internet has to pay telecoms operators to deliver traffic that's been demanded by users ‑‑ in telecoms' lobbyist speak, it's known as fair share ‑‑ and this was to fulfil what was supposed to be an investment gap in building next generation networks and building fiber to the home and 5G.
In response to this consultation, everybody thought this was a terrible idea apart from the big telecoms operators who stood to get paid from it.
Then last year there was another paper, a white paper, on how to master Europe's digital infrastructure, which kind of promoted other ideas, and some of the same ideas kind of reworked in a different way, including turning, allowing big European telecoms operators to consolidate, to promote supposed this investment that's needed and to make them European technology champions so they can compete against technology companies from the rest of the world it proposed regulatory simple itch cation which could be a good thing and fair share turned at this point into their contribution, it also claimed there was convergence between cloud and telecoms. So telecoms operators who provide broadband to your home or mobile services and cloud services, this white paper claimed that these two were coming together and therefore may be needed to be regulated in the same way.
It covered other topics as well, submarine cables and quantum computing and around security and resilience as well.
But we have a new Commissioner now, I put my best Finnish accent on, Henna Virkunnen, Commissioner Virkunnen is from Finland, and she doesn't have quite the same relationship with the big telecoms companies that Breton did and in the few months that she's been in the post, we have seen a slight change in position perhaps in whether the previous ideas are kind of being carried forward, a cryptic comment around not only size matters, we don't necessarily just want to make everybody a few people bigger, we want to make sure that there is competition in the market, telecoms market as well.
And in June there was a call for evidence for the upcoming Digital Networks Act, which is due to be ‑‑ the draft is due to be released in December, only like six weeks away now.
Now we don't have much to go on, we only have what was in the call for evidence paper but putting on my ‑‑ using the crystal ball, what could be in a Digital Networks Act based on what we have seen in the call for evidence. Well simple I have cation is a key part of this, harmonisation moving to a single telecoms market across Europe, this could merge the EECC, that's already there, it could include the open internet regulation and be rolled into this Digital Networks Act, which was the internet regulation was hard fought for to ensure net neutrality on the internet. It could address this supposed lack of innovation and lack of investments in next generation networks. It could include spectrum policy brief form where spectrum is now perhaps managed and issued by the European Commission rather than by individual countries.
And the last three on this list, are the ones that I think have potentially the biggest impact to the open internet and we'll talk more about each of these three this a minute. The first one is level playing field. Which is potentially aligning telecoms cloud and content and application providers all under a single regulatory framework, the second one is net neutrality rules, there's a possibility of a clarification around network slicing and differentiated services.
And the third one is around IP interconnection, where there's a possibility of a new dispute resolution mechanism or co‑operation mechanism that is run by telecoms regulators.
Let's take each of those three that potentially impact the open internet in turn.
First one is level playing field. Now, this is a term that has been used by telecoms company lobbyists for more than a decade now and their argument is, well, we compete with all the services on the internet which is I would disagree, we need each other, we don't compete with them and therefore all the services on the internet should be under the same telecoms regulatory framework as telecoms operators and this links to this claim of convergance between telecoms an cloud, telecoms operators are using cloud for their own services and some of them are selling cloud services but it doesn't necessarily make telecoms operators cloud operators and it doesn't make cloud providers telecoms operators either and other industries are using cloud as well, banking, energy, health care, that doesn't necessarily mean there's a convergance between cloud and health care.
This level playing field term and phrase made it into the call for evidence for the Digital Networks Act, so it seems that this thinking has become embedded in at least parts of the European Commission.
But the question really is are telecoms operators and digital services even playing the same sport? How do you regulate a football match and a boxing match using the same set of rules? It's very difficult, right?
And it's also very unclear where the boundary of cloud services might be. Is a gaming platform a cloud service? Is any sort of private network including the wi‑fi network I operate at home, a network that needs regulating under this level playing field? It's very unclear at the moment. And we wait to see what will come.
The second area is net neutrality. And as I said earlier, the open internet regulation protects net neutrality, it's been in place for a decade now and it was hard fought for by the community to make sure that everything on the internet has the opportunity to succeed, there are no last lanes, there are no priority treatment of certain traffic.
The Digital Networks Act seems to be proposing a clarification of the open internet regulation to support what's called innovation, it particular around 5G network slicing to allow priority treatment for different applications or types of applications an also QS on end to end connections across multiple networks which as far as I am aware is not possible across the internet but it's included here.
Now a couple of years ago OFCOM in the UK ‑‑ because the UK is now outside the European Union, they can do things slightly different to the EU ‑‑ they revised some of their guidance around this and they received evidence from telecoms operators that had not been able to launch a number of different services because the net neutrality rules prevented them introducing these innovative services that differentiated traffic. OFCOM looked at this and most of it was nothing to do with differentiated services, they wanted to have simple fast lanes which OFCOM was not up for, even when they did clarify their guidance in the past couple of years we haven't seen any new innovative services emerge to take advantage of this guidance so it's difficult to see what the real demands is and there is this risk of a two tier internet with fast lanes.
And then finally there's IP interconnection dispute resolution and if you were the connect working group just before now and came here because I was asked to come here thank you and if you didn't, I just did a talk about in aspect in particular and you can watch it back on the RIPE video stream later. Talking about the potential for telecoms regulators to get involved in what is understood to be a very well functioning market with no market failure, the director comes to the RIPE meetings and they don't see any problem problems with the market, personally it's one of the most efficient markets in the world, the fact that we can have 99.99, whatever, percent of peering relationships without any contracts or paperwork is a fantastic thing. And even when you do disagree ‑‑ and we don't always agree with the people we want to interconnect with ‑‑ you can resolve that by agreeing to disagree and using alternative paths across the internet to reach two networks and that works with large networks, with Deutsch Telecom and Meta, they decided they weren't going to peer any more and now they do not directly interconnect and I believe Meta services continue to work on Deutsche telecom, maybe not quite as fast but they still work.
So the DNA seems to be proposing some sort of dispute resolution or co‑operation mechanism for IP interconnection, which would be overseen by telecoms regulators.
And the risk here is not only that telecoms regulators start to deciding your peering policy, but also this risk of dispute creation rather than dispute resolution. If you have a higher authority you can go to, if you don't like the outcome of your discussion with another party you want to connect your network to, this is dispute creation, it's not dispute resolution.
So with the change in the Commissioner at the top of the European Commission and the positions of all the different stakeholders, kind of pulling a number of different directions, and I suspect there is a risk that when the Digital Networks Act draft is released in December, as someone described it at a conference I was attending recently, they described it is a Christmas present that nobody wants, because it could include elements that nobody likes. And the stakeholders all have very different positions right, it's big telecoms operators want to consolidate and freedom to differentiate internet traffic and less regulation for them and more regulation for everything else digital, the small operators are concerned about competition and making sure the comment competitive framework that allowed them so succeeded and invest continues and content owners and application providers have concerns about network fees or dispute resolution that leads to network fees. And there's all this other regulation coming out of Brussels at the same time which potentially overlaps.
Governments want to keep control of their spectrum policy rather than hand it over to the European Commission, and ensure autonomy of their national regulators. The regulators don't all necessarily agree with the problems that are supposedly identified by the Commission. Consumers associations are concerned about the impact on consumers if there's reduced competition in the telecoms market, there's increased cost to consumers, that's harm to users an also concerns about net neutrality and then there's civil society and the technical community are also concerned about net neutrality and these IP interconnection proposals so threading the needle between all these different concerns and diametrically opposed views I think is going to be very hard for the Commission. So we will see.
In my opinion, this is just my opinion, what should DNA do. Well deployment of fiber to the home and 5G across Europe is going pretty well. There's in most countries there's a couple of countries, Germany and Italy in particular on fiber that are a bit behind but many countries doing very well, some countries have reached 100% coverage of 5G, getting pretty close to fiber to the home. What's lagging home behind is take up, people buying these services and that's because there's not applications that really need gigabit connectivity yet.
So if you have got VDSL, the probably good enough for most things, it's not quite as good, but for most people it's good enough to stream your Netflix and so on. So driving demand for these next generation networks I think is key here.
Which is the opposite to taxing IP traffic.
Reducing barriers to deployment of any sort of neck, be technology neutral, especially in rural areas which are the areas that now need to be focused on to bring connectivity, high speed connectivity to everybody I think is key and yes, regulatory simplification is a good thing but this needs to protect competition consumers and the open internet and avoiding regulatory duplication overlap with the other regulations that the European Union has brought in as well.
So I know there's probably a variety of views on some of these topics and all I would encourage to you to do is keep updated and get involved. The draft proposal is going to be released early December apparently. Sign up to the co‑operation working list if you are not already on it. I am sure it will be posted there when it is. I post about this stuff on LinkedIn. You can follow me. If you work for an organisation with a regulatory policy team involved, please engage with them an make sure the views of the technical community are heard and please join the conversation. Thank you.
(APPLAUSE.)
JULF HELFSINGUS: Thank you, Mike. I just want to ‑‑ as a semi native Finnish speaker ‑‑ (in Finnish).
JIM REID: Jim Reid speaking for myself as a random member of the public. Interesting talk, Mike, thanks very much for this stuff.
Have you any sort of sense for the feel of how soon after this Digital Network Act gets published by the Commission that it will then become enacted in national law? And there's as a supplementary question to that. Is there anything chance that the current proposals that Rudiger and Martin was talking about at the last RIPE meeting about this multi‑stakeholderer task force thing, that's looking at other potential internet regulation, is it likely that anything that comes out of that task force might influence this act or is this act going to go ahead as it is right now?
MIKE BLANCHE: To your first question, this is a draft and there should be a consultation process on it although we have heard in the past that there's a claim no, there's previous consultations we did, those were the consultations even though you didn't have something concrete on, we are not going to do any more, hopefully the European Commission will follow its better regulations principles and have a proper impact assessment and open consultation on it. The earliest realistically it could be implemented ‑‑ and it doesn't need trasposition, it's an act so it automatically applies across the whole of the EU without transmission, probably 2018 maybe. And then to your other question ‑‑ 2028 maybe, I am not, it's probably a question for Rudiger whether it would feed into that process, I would think there would probably be a broader consultation, I would hope there would be as well, once they release the draft that anyone can reply to.
JIM REID: It's good to know, thanks very much, Mike.
SPEAKER: Peter Koch, DENIC. Brussels keeps confusing me. In my job actually.
Thanks for presenting this and also for the background to the open internet 2021 regulation and so on, what confuses me here and you mentioned it in part but I would be interested in more insight not only did we have ‑‑ but we had the Draghi report, we had the member states urging the Commission to not really asking for a moratorium but to start evaluating the fishes see and effectiveness of the regulation which is why we got a lot of omnibuses right now so the DNA feels a bit wrong in that strategy. What's your stance on that?
MIKE BLANCHE: You are absolutely right, the Draghi report called for regulatory simplification and deregulation, except on technology companies where it says there needs to be more regulation which is a little bit inconsistent. Yes I agree with you, I suspect that the DNA is to too far down he the road for them to go we don't do this at all, however we'll have to see what comes in December as to whether it's something that helps with the overall agenda as you say around deregulation and simple cation, whether it's layering more problems on top.
SPEAKER: I have a short suggestion, you mentioned the open internet regulation and then what may or may not be helpful there, it's not new that Berick is disagreeing but Berick as the nice collection of the national authorities reports on the open internet regulation and it would be great if a RIPE NCC through the race see initiative could maybe inspire some researchers to do longitude al analysis of what's in there to support evidence based policy making. Thank you.
MIKE BLANCHE: That sounds like a great suggestion.
(APPLAUSE.)
SPEAKER: Not speaking for anybody else, Andrew Campling. A really interesting presentation. Two things firstly, just channelling my inner Rudiger Martin, which is a scary thought, a clarification I think is task force wasn't to create new regulation, it was to provide best practice guidelines for NIS2 implementation, I don't think DIGI connect was proposing regulations to impose elsewhere, at least not in that case.
A comment though, on one of your points about the fair share etc, Maria Farrell at the last RIPE meeting gave a really interesting presentation, a key note about rewilding the internet and about the negative impact of centralisation and consolidation and given similar to this panel decision in a side meeting at previous IETF 121 meeting in Dublin, I do wonder whether the idea of extracting investment funds from the big tech companies who I think to completely simplify a presentation definitely are guilty of value extraction for most of the markets they operate in and not much reinvestment in relative terms, that would be a good thing, whether it should go to the big telecoms companies is a separate discussion but maybe at least reinvesting in the markets from where they are extracting value would be good for the internet in the long‑term, so just to give a slightly counter view. But reserving judgment whether it should go to the big telcos or not.
MIKE BLANCHE: I think the challenge is determining who is extracting value and who is providing value and that's not an easy question to answer. And the issue with network fees is it's not just about half a dozen big technology US technology companies, it's about the whole internet and turning the way the internet works upside down so that rather and everybody paying their way on the internet, it now, now funds are flowing towards telecoms operators providing access to users:
JULF HELFSINGUS: Thank you. (APPLAUSE.)
DESIREE MILOSHEVIC: It's my pleasure to introduce the next speaker, Anja Gengo, she's a programme management officer at the United Nations governance forum, a focal point for this national regional and youth initiatives and it's a very important year for the IGF secretariat and the whole initiatives, NR I initiatives because in December at the review of the world on the Information Society the General Assembly will be deciding not just about the destiny of the WHOIS it also Lu also there's some positive news that many technical community members but also other communities have supported the work of the IGF secretariat asking for its permanent mandate.
So with that Anja please welcome to and the floor is yours.
ANJA GENGO: Thank you very much, I hope you can hear me well, it's a great pleasure to join you, it was so useful to learn from the previous colleagues and especially from the questions that came from the floor. I am sorry that we couldn't join you in person in Bucharest, but unfortunately the schedules couldn't align, this is a very important momentum for the IGF and also saying for the good of the community that really cares about internet governance and everything that we stand for in terms of the values. I will in the coming MIPS speak a little bit about where we are now in relation to WSIS 20, what is the expectation about where our digital future might go as of December and I would like to provide an update on the ‑‑ in Norway where the IGF hosted the 20th Annual IGF meeting, we need to start with the overall process, basically the work of the IGF secretariat was dominated to a good extent by the first half of this year with preparing for the 20th annual IGF meeting with the WSIS past 20 preparations and overall vision turning reality informing the preparations and cross putting really much of the programme and of the agenda that happened in Lillestrom but alsoment other forms of work and now the second half of the year is ‑‑ and fulfilling other portions was our mandate ‑‑ co‑operation and state engagement on the issues, matters related to policy and priority for the community and I will speak how that is changing as well these processes now.
Our structures, including the multi‑stakeholderer advisory group, the leadership panel and the secretariat, we work this year really to deliver the process through which all stakeholders will be able to address the issues of interest and be informed about what is happening, in terms of the digital policy primarily putting the emphasis on the WSIS first 20 preparations and the meeting that is up coming in December of the General Assembly. Of course the 2030 agenda for sustainable development as well as the implementation of the global reach ‑‑ this year practically you may be aware we have what's called the ‑‑ the special net ‑‑ an ordinary procedure for this year primarily where the mag is composed of members coming from the so far /PHAG compositions an also the working group on internet governance, where the aim for the experience in internet governance from all stakeholders groups and regions with parity to inform the WSIS plus 20 preparings an also the future of the IGF in terms of advancing and improving its working modalities, the leadership panel also works with the objective led by the Chair and helped by the Vice Chair work to also issue the final report to the secretary general the work they have done and also to strategically make the IGF more impactful, wherever they deliver the processes that have happening globally.
The 20th annual IFG meeting hosted by the government of Norway, this June in Lillestrom resulted in several important outputs and outcomes, it was one of the most successful IGFs so far ‑‑ in terms of the presence of the high‑level decision makers which this year is important because at the end of the day and especially in December, it will be the decision makers who will be shaping our digital future, looking at the ‑‑ following its implementation, particularly the Lillestrom IGF messages because they outline who is the appetite of the global community in terms of the topics and in terms of the substance on internet governance and we have seen through the discussions of more than 265 sessions certainly the concept of trust and resilience dominates the discussions, calling for a strengthening of our cyber security an also integrity and data governance in AI and sustainability is something that's been also recognised by the global community as an important topic, looking in terms of the technologies and of the internet at such and this is something we'll see later present in the WSIS plus 20 discussions and hopefully we will see how the final resolution will look like, the current draft for example that is ‑‑ in areas of stakeholderer consultations contains the specific wording as well.
Some of the ‑‑ it is something of huge concern, a growing concern for the mobile community in different ways and we are seeing that primarily through the NR Is for example, who have concerns communities as you mentioned for example Spain, France, is certainly identical and sometimes similar that concerns communities in Burundi, Uruguay, and they are real threats to the internet that you are going to maintain and preserve. So in that sense the IGF work is also oriented towards looking, for example, to the concepts of through a dedicated policy network, looking at the technical layout and the policy layout. The layout of just the mechanisms that support the implementation of the policies of the frameworks that we have in various parts of the world and also in the regional and international levels.
The meeting in Lillestrom and its outputs certainly inform our current work that's focused on the community and that is in addition to the policy network on implementation I mentioned, we also work with stakeholders from around the world at looking at how do we achieve meaningful access to through a dedicated policy network as well as governing artificial intelligence, focusing in this context primarily on the mechanisms, on the initiatives that need need across the world. I mentioned that whatever is happening in the world is certainly impacting the global map programme study at the IGF, the overall security and geopolitical situation informs. So for example the best practice form on cyber security through which we work with multi‑stakeholderer networks from across the world, this year is looking into what are good and not to good practices on cyber security in conflicts in the of various natures, how do we preserve the core internet infrastructure that is desperately needed in those types of communities.
And then also we have 32 dynamic coalitions that function throughout the year, what is maybe a new thing with the thematic community driven ‑‑ they work also on issues they see are a priority. Just recently perhaps some of you have seen the webinar that a number of different.coalitions organised, together with the IGF secretariat, to look at QAM computing and what is the next stage of the technological innovation coming our way, overall government approaches to tackle and embrace that technology as well.
And our strongest partners in understanding the specifics of ‑‑ digital dominance or internet dominance agenda, and youth IGFs, there are 177 of them, for example the national IGF is ‑‑ is happening today, continuing its meeting soon with other annual meetings as well but these are growing in both quality and quantity and their outcomes are their output puts are critical to inform the global discourse and especially Lee the national and regional practices, they are offering unique market stakeholders organic platforms for implementation of the mechanisms that we are coming to serve people from around the world.
Capacity development is one of the many objectives of the IGF, we are focused also on within our capacity in objective as well. And I am glad that Roman spoke about the courts in this internet governance space because it is real and their decisions are impacting people and individuals in our societies at collective levels, what we are seeing in terms of the understanding of particularly technical layers of the internet but then of course how that matches the international applicable national and other policies, multi‑stakeholderer engagement with judiciary and similarly with parliament around the world, in order to bridge this gap and ensure that those who are coming up with just concrete decisions impacting all of us are really informed and that that is the multi‑stakeholderer approach, the only way to understand the potential in the region for making decisions and in that sense the IGF as well for example at the very first time it's something that we called targeted traditional engagement, where we have judges, prosecutors, support staff, speaking to the multi‑stakeholderer community from the experts from various disciplines, on the topics that had been of interest. This is something we continue, likewise working with young people is critical for our tested development strategy and delivering other activities primarily for the global south with the aim to build co‑operation, capacity, of the global south communities but also between developing countries and developed countries in the sense of the internet governance region.
And I know that we are running out time, so I will try to just speed up. What I would like to inform you now is the ‑‑ agenda within the UN itself, it concerns very much the IGF, there is a recent work that's been done by the level of the UN General Assembly but also the level of the specs lied agents, the executive secretariat, valuable work happening with the regional commissions of the UN in different parts of the world. For this occasion I would like to mention a few resolutions that came up recently and they are very much focused on internet governance and primarily informing and orienting the extent the work on the IGF as well. So you will see there the way the technologies are impacting the societies from the perspective of theSG Gs, the UN has been very clear on informing the community that we are behind achieving the SDGs and ‑‑ there's been a stronger ‑‑ that digital technologies can be
AI is, as you know, dominating very much our global discourse, in that sense the GA came up with three resolutions in this domain, the first one is about the opportunities, the AI systems with bring for sustainability developments, followed by the need for capacity development on AI and the third one is more technical because it speaks about the types of references and working of two new mechanisms that we are seeing within AI: The first one is the establishment of the independent international scientific panel on AI and that with the global dialogue on AI governance that will be happening in New York. We are yet to see how this will be implemented in practice, but for now we see the terms of reference and the modalities which do underline the the importance of multi‑stakeholderer approach. And we are hoping the upcoming WSIS class 20 review, the decision by the UN General Assembly in December will bring more clarity on how we make these practices work together, of course all of us taking the multi‑stakeholderer approach, the WSIS plus 20 zero draft is informed by various multi‑stakeholderer consultations, it's led by ‑‑ in I can't is very much open to the community, the text itself in the form it is is available on the dedicated website, speaks about preserving the multi‑stakeholderer approach and the role that all the stakeholders play in internet governance going forward, what the secretariat does, we are very much focused on ‑‑ due to fulfil through the UN GAs and the UNSGs and of course the General Assembly's deliberation in December, I do invite you to be active and make sure that your voice is heard in the WSIS+20 consultation. The technical community is a very important stakeholderer group because we believe that you are the condition of all conditions, in terms of your work to enshrine that we keep the internet and connected conversation and applications and tools in line with the principles that we ‑‑ which is the multi‑stakeholderer open and transparent framework and of course human rights based.
For registrations if you would like to participate, the 14th November, the registration is open and if you would like to host any side events be it in person, in New York, this December or online, then the deadline to submit proposals is the end of this month. And I would like to invite you to consider proposing some events because I think that is a good opportunity to engage better the with the member states. As I said the 16th and 17th December. With that I will stop here and thank you very much.
(APPLAUSE.) Any questions? Comments?
SPEAKER: Hi, Andrew Campling again, not representing any one else. I think the IGF is a very valuable forum as an observation, the tech community is generally an under represented stakeholderer certainly in the annual IGF meetings and dare I say it for the European sort of regional IGF euro degree, encouragement for more stakeholders from here to go there and one of the big benefits going there was touched on certainly for the sort of global IGF meetings, you do get parliamentarians there and other legislators, if you think they are uninformed about the internet or making stupid decisions, you have an opportunity to actually talk to them directly and inform them. So I think it's a very useful thing to attend and a good investment to generally improve how everything works.
JULF HELFSINGUS: Thank you. Anja, many thanks for a great presentation and bringing it to us. Thank you.
(APPLAUSE.)
DESIREE MILOSHEVIC: And now I invite Eric Vyncke who is going to take us into the world of internet standards and experiences making an impact, Eric, welcome and the floor is yours. And I understand this is a new format, a panel.
Thank you.
ERIC VYNCKE: It's not only me, this will be Jen Linkova. And we also have Mr. Sander, well known in the RIPE community and David. All of us are coming from different countries, US, Switzerland, Australia, and myself, different backgrounds to companies like SalesForce and Cisco and OpenSource, we are doing IPv6 DNS routing and all of us are here, multiple times, so we prepared a panel. All of us. And one thing for each of the panel member, what do you see as difference in similarities between the RIPE community and the IETF community? If you have anything to say.
DAVID: I think the community is both very similarly, there is pretty open process both of these organisations, obviously the targeting is very different, and the IETF is just much more complex with all the different working groups. .
SANDER STEFFANN: : One thing I would say there's a lot of cultural similarity. If you look at other organisations that are trying to take on different parts of managing the internet, the technological community that's involved in both RIPE and IETF has a lot of similarities and personality styles of the people involved and the way they approach the work and one of the positives I see also is that there isn't so much standing on higherity, right, in general people want to get things done, it doesn't matter whether you are an architect or programmer, if you have ideas that can contribute, both organisations look forward to the contributions, and less so the particular person that's going. Sand sand my experience is a bit more mixed and I think the big difference is the RIPE meeting, RIPE community feels more coherent, if you look at the IETF, it really depends on which working group you are in on what the culture is.
I have seen working groups that feel very much like the RIPE community does, I have seen working groups where different parties are trying to gain an advantage and the whole feeling is very different so the IETF is much bigger and there's I think there's much more diversity in cultures than in RIPE.
JEN LINKOVA: I'd like to second what you said, right, it's just a community with a slightly different goal, we keep saying IETF is not a conference right, RIPE is not a conference, but IETF is not like you listen to presentations, you are actually trying to get some documents which impact how internet operates, right, so there is similarities and differences and was there mention free drinks at RIPE.
ERIC VYNCKE: And nice dinner and nice social, we don't have this at this IETF any more. If you have any questions, if you have any for the panel, please jump to the queue. So usefulness of the IETF, what have you done at the IETF that is useful for RIPE?
JEN LINKOVA: IPv6 mostly. OK. I actually I have something to say here because I keep talking to my colleagues about the same and that why we go into those places, like Hawaii ten years ago, so I have a problem, sometimes IETF is the right place to place to solve it; you get there, you get stuff done and it might be useful for the community, right. So it's not a process I enjoy, sometimes you need to do this to get some outcome and get something done in the most efficient way so ‑‑. Sand sand yes, I didn't do that much in the IETF, I participated a lot but what happens there is very important and useful for our community to I do think we should do more of that.
DAVID LAWRENCE: I work in several different areas but my mime re focus is the DNS and often times it has fallen on my shoulders to document some protocols being used that are not necessarily popular, for example my name is on the EDNS and I see many flaws in it but it was necessary to document it for the community to understand when they are managing their networks what they are seeing and how different CDNs were making use of different mapping across the internet so you know the other, we are working right now on a protocol called Deli, which is trying to enhance the DNS in a way that has not been done for its 40 years of existence, which is to make it easier for clients to actually get encrypted DNS service for example over the internet and the number of other features, so essentially we keep trying to make the DNS better even at the same time as we make it complex, we Friday to do it in a way that can still be understandable.
DAVID LAMPARTER: I am most active in IPv6 towards the end host and CPE kind of things, I am still trying to fix multihoming where you don't have BGP sessions, it's still an open problem an we need to get something done there. For the routing stuff which is technically my job, most of the time I am not sure enough of what would be useful to carry from operators at RIPE to the IETF so that's something I am looking for input on, if anyone feels comfortable throwing things at me, I am happy about that.
JEN LINKOVA: We have two quick comments, right, I have been seen in like some telegram operators communities when operators say oh the invention all these stupid protocols like it's something given by you and as a matter of fact, and I keep saying, telling those people if you do not like how protocol is developed, come and say something and don't complain if later you ignore the process and did not give your input and you are unhappy with the outcome, for example ‑‑
SANDER STEFFANN: So there is actually some interaction between what we do section Address Policy and what the IETF does and sometimes these worlds don't align, there was a proposal for a certain protocol you should assign a /32 look back to your interfaces and I am talking of V6, a /32 to your look back so you know, that would techically, I mean techically they are just numbers but this would completely not work with the policies we have in our community. So there is actually some interaction there.
ERIC VYNCKE: Next question, what is missing in the IETF and what can the RIPE bring bring to the IETF so operators feedback.
SANDER STEFFANN: Operators feedback would be really important. The reason I am not participating in the IETF as much as I would like to, it does cost a lot of energy and a lot of time, especially because it's so big, there are so many people, there's so much going on, it's really hard, you basically need an employer who will sponsor you to do this work because this is not something you can easily do in your spare time.
JEN LINKOVA: I think that question shouldn't be not to ask to the community because most people on this stage, we need to hear from people in the room .
DAVID LAWRENCE: One of the biggest criticisms of the IETF from other technologies is the fact that it gets very little operators input. And while there is cross over that definitely exists, we need more and standards do get developed on the basis of this seems like a really good idea but often by a programmer who thinks I can implement this without really huing to the operate al realities to get that standard deployed.
JEN LINKOVA: I looked at IETF attendance list for three years at RIPE attendance list for three years and 2,000 people who came at least once to RIPE, 10% actually were registered at IETF in the last three years, I presume you put your last and first name correctly there is substantial overlap, I think 10% is not so bad.
ERIC VYNCKE: So why me, why you in the room should come here, why did you come to the IETF?
DAVID LAMPARTER: We need you. That is the simple answer, especially some sizes of businesses, put it like that, at the lower end there's very few people at the IETF that we can even go to and ask if things work for them, what we need to fix for them. It's a pretty large blind spot so if we are to develop protocols that work better for everyone here to get there we need to know where to actually go with them and yeah, we can't, we don't have a magic ball to figure this out
SANDER STEFFANN: I think because what I said earlier, it takes a lot of time and a lot of effort, I think that also creates a selection of which companies, which people are represented at IETF so what I think is that the IETF needs more people from smaller companies but they will have trouble getting the funding and the time to do it. And for bigger companies it would be easier, it's a smaller percentage of the budget. So I think what IETF needs is better representation from smaller operators.
ERIC VYNCKE: If you know me from a big company, it's not as easy as well to get a travel budget.
JEN LINKOVA: I have a comment. So six monthly work, I have done most of the progress at IETF an it has nothing to do with working for a big company, it's actually being there and doing ‑‑ with people who are able to fix the problem and say look, I have a problem. Like two days later, we have a call change which will be in the next release of the operating system or something. So you actually get contacts to get stuff done much quicker and get things fixed which you wouldn't even, I can't even comprehend going through like standard support channel and so on, so it's actually very useful, you are making this community contact
DAVID LAWRENCE: Two additional clarification about that: Eric used an interesting word, why should you come to the IETF, it can have a couple of different meanings but the majority of participation in the IETF actually happens on mailing lists, you don't have to come anywhere and besides remote attendance being possible for meetings, you don't even have to attend meetings in order to make a big impact on how different work progresses an as to the amount of time, yes the IETF is huge and there are a ton of drafts going on, but if there is a draft that interests you, like DNS op, the main group for vetting new DNS proposals has two dozen different active drafts at any one time, we are not all working on two dozen drafts, right, and so you focus on something that's of particular interest and you can make a contribution for free, right, like time is not free but aside from paying attention to what's going on with the draft and being able to read it and make some feedback on it, your participation in the IETF is value just for the time spent.
ERIC VYNCKE: You make a good point, to come to the IETF, to participate at the IETF, think about on Monday, right, in the plenary, Remco presented something about next OP being a V6 address, guess what the draft is published now ‑‑ with you but other people as well. We won't comment on a draft right, if you should come back with some discussion, yes, the input can be done, one email, anybody in the room can send an email, you don't need to pay, right. And something very important, you represent yourself in the IETF. So don't ashamed to post your point of view there .
DAVID LAWRENCE: Most of these arguments work the other way around for the IETF people to come to a RIPE meeting, I am happy we have ‑‑ with IOB hats on, we should probably also carry arguments the other way around. If anyone in the room has great reasons for more IETF people to come to RIPE, tell them to us and get more IETF people into RIPE and NANOG and things like that.
JEN LINKOVA: I remember how I ended up in this show business, right, it was interim IETF meeting right after RIPE meeting in Amsterdam, so it was like Saturday, so you don't need to travel anywhere, you basically already are in the building, it costs like 50 bucks or something, and it was like operational groups, it was I think V6 ops and DNS, I can't remember. So it was actually very useful to like try IETF experience with minimal amount of investment and bus time and money. Ideally you should consider doing this again.
ERIC VYNCKE: She's looking at me when saying that. OK. OK. Other question, is it difficult to work at the IETF? To participate?
DAVID LAWRENCE: So, yeah and no. Again, it's the access is very easy but you do have to be paying attention, right, and one of the notable things that is different again going back to the, it's not a conference, it's actually a session of working groups is that there is very little you can walk into at the IETF and just pick up wherever they are, right, you come to RIPE and you get a presentation that is one nice package product, you walk into an IETF working group, you better have an idea of what's going on, you are going to stare at your laptop doing emails because you won't be able to follow what's going on.
ERIC VYNCKE: What you are doing is attending remotely right? There is a free waiver and there are very specific session, the Bof, this is basically a working group starting so they start from scratch, they explain the problem, the use case, not go deep into the technical solution. So you can get a good input there immediately. And it's very easy because it's two hours and there are three of them in Montreal in two weeks.
STEFFANN SANDER: So, asking a question back, you said before there's lots of drafts going on, but you only pick a few you want to participate in. When you are ‑‑ when you want to start contributing, when you are new, where do you start looking? Because there's so much going on, how do you find the interesting bits?
DAVID LAWRENCE: That be can an interesting challenge, one thing is that anybody can sign up to a mailing list for free at the IETF website, you will see if there's ‑‑ say you have identified a draft that's interesting to you, you will see which working group it is being discussed in and you can join that working group mailing list and discuss the draft.
JEN LINKOVA: My first IETF in Vancouver in 2013, I walked in the room second session aft day and I see a presentation about people trying to deprecate things I am using every day, hold on, hold on just a second here, oh, there is a use case apparently.
DAVID LAWRENCE: Also useful is the mailing lists have public archives that go back.
ERIC VYNCKE: Yes, something we need to share with RIPE and IATF, we need to Finnish on time. Specifically because we have got a free lunch here, thank you for your attention.
JULF HELFSINGUS: One quick question, do you want to comment?
SPEAKER: Hello, thank you for your ‑ really interesting new format, I like it. And I can support your messages. So I am Constanz, I am speaking for myself and I work a long time for government and design public networks, what governments are interested in is security and serenity. So what can we do mostly for these issues to standardise and make policies in our own issues from our democratic view. So I'm really interested in to make, to bring our democratic values in IETF standards, what we saw a long time ago the Chinese people came up with the IPv6 plus, so we went and tried to prevent it. So what we see in governments that's important issue to go on the IETF and to see what is happening there and who makes standards there. So I have a personal interest to follow these process and I can recommend it also for the Commission, it's better than regulation in every time, so use these possibilities to bring in values and to save our sovereignty in this way.
ERIC VYNCKE: Sometimes in the IETF we need to fight some forces that are not really nice. Let's say it like this.
JULF HELFSINGUS: Thank you all. Thank you very much.
(APPLAUSE.)
The only additional thing I have to say is enjoy your lunch.
Thank you.
(Lunch break)