Keynote speech at EuroDIG 2017: Göran Marby

Event report

Mr Göran Marby, CEO and President, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), delivered the final keynote speech of the tenth edition of EuroDIG. Marby reflected back on the time he lived and worked in Tallinn, and said that Estonia has made noteworthy progress since then. According to him, it was the power of the Internet that made the fast positive change over the last twenty years possible.

EuroDIG 2017 brought up the timely discussion on how we use the Internet, reminding us that it is not a natural resource, but one that the whole community has to take care of.  In 2016, ICANN and the Internet Society celebrated the twenty-fifth birthday of the Internet and the progress end-users experience today. Marby focused on several points correlated with the discussion during the event.

First, he emphasised that partnerships and the multistakeholder model are at the centre of ICANN’s work and provide for the interobjectivity of the Internet. The Internet needs of one end-user differ from those of another, and only interobjectivity can provide co-operation.

Second, in order to protect this interoperability, Marby stressed the importance of technology and the underlying functionality that enables the operation of the Internet. ‘We are not the Internet, but we are what controls it’, Marby said. In regards to technical operability, he mentioned the importance of the Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC), and reminded the audience about 11 October 2017 as a milestone for ICANN, when the new Key Signing Key (KSK) rollover will take place.

Third, Marby addressed the negativity surrounding the current discussion on the Internet, and reminded us of its positive sides. ‘The Internet is not done’, Marby noted, and expressed ICANN’s goal of connecting an additional 1.5 billion users worldwide with the current 4 billion connected users. In his view, the key for the future of the Internet is recognising the users’ local needs. The future Internet will be both local and global, Marby concluded. Lastly, he reminded us once again that the Internet is not a natural resource, and has to be updated, mended, and fixed all the time by the whole community.