Lightly used IP addresses

Mon Aug 16 03:05:22 UTC 2010

On Aug 15, 2010, at 9:20 AM, William Herrin wrote:

> On Sun, Aug 15, 2010 at 11:44 AM, Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com> wrote:
>> ARIN fees and budget are a member concern, not a public concern.
> 
> Oh really? The money ARIN spends managing the public's IP addresses
> (and how it collects that money and the privileges conferred on the
> folks from whom it's collected) are not a matter of public concern?
> 
> I seem to recall that attitude was how ICANN first started to get in to trouble.
> 
> 
As I said, they are a matter of member concern. To the best of my knowledge,
ICANN membership is not open. If you care about how ARIN spends its money,
become a member, speak up, and vote. Membership is open to all and voting
membership is open to all resource holders.

>>> Unfortunately, the LRSA contains another price which I personally
>>> consider too high: voluntary termination revokes the IP addresses
>>> instead of restoring the pre-contract status quo. Without that
>>> balancing check to the contract, I think a steady creep in what ARIN
>>> requires of the signatory is inevitable... and the affirmative actions
>>> ARIN can require the registrant to perform in order to maintain the
>>> contract are nearly unlimited.
>>> 
>> I believe the LRSA limits them primarily to the annual fee payment.
> 
> Do you now. Unfortunately, the plain language of the LRSA does not
> respect your belief.
> 
> ARIN makes only two promises about the application of existing and new
> ARIN policies to LRSA signatories: "ARIN will take no action to reduce
> the services provided for Included Number Resources _that are not
> currently being utilized_ by the Legacy Applicant." (10.b) and "fee
> shall be $100 per year until the year 2013; no increase per year
> greater than $25." (6.b)
> 
> Except for those exclusions, the LRSA includes "the Policies which are
> hereby incorporated by reference" (15.d). Those policies are "binding
> upon Legacy Applicant immediately after they are posted on the
> Website" (7).
> 
> In other words, if the ARIN board adopts a policy that legacy
> registrants must install some of their addresses on a router on the
> moon (or perhaps some requirement that's a little less extreme) then
> failing to is cause for terminating the contract (14.b). Which revokes
> the IP addresses (14.e.i).
> 
I think that is a rather bizarre and extreme construction of excerpts of the
contract language. More rational construction would lead one to believe
that the stated intent is to limit ARIN's ability to raise fees and prevent
the revocation of legacy addresses absent a failure to pay fees.

The policies incorporated by reference are the same policies which affect
every other address holder, so ARIN would have a hard time requiring
legacy holders to address devices on the moon without requiring the
same thing from all other resource holders.

Owen