[arin-discuss] ARIN Election SPAM

[John Curran]

On 10 Oct 2018, at 5:33 PM, Clayton Zekelman <clayton at MNSi.Net> wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> I'm not sure if this is the place to bring it up, but did anyone else receive unsolicited e-mail from someone running for an ARIN board position this week?
> 
> It appears that they harvested my e-mail address from my POC record.

Folks - 

In accordance with the Virginia nonstock corporation act, ARIN makes available online for inspection the list of eligible voters for its annual election.  That list includes both the organization name and the organization’s postal address (note that we do not provide email contact information or telephone numbers as part of this list.)

ARIN’s election procedures do not constrain candidates from promotion of any form; this has been discussed with the Board in the past with the result being that it is best left to the judgement of each voter what constitutes useful and informative information versus an undesired appeal for support.

There are many ways that the eligible voter list can be reconciled with the related e-mail addresses, and this does include potentially use of ARIN’s Whois and Bulk Whois services. Our present terms of use for those Whois services do not specifically mention use related to ARIN election purposes, and as such an it is possible to argue either side of the usage being permissible or impermissible.  

I am aware of candidate email campaigns occurring in several of the past years, and this year appears to be no different.  I would ask that for the time being, folks consider such emails as one more additional encouragement to vote (if you have not already).   Once this election is complete, we can then enjoy a discussion of whether any changes to our Whois terms of use (or our election processes in general) is warranted in this regard. 

Thanks! (and again - remember to vote!)
/John

John Curran
President and CEO
American Registry for Internet Numbers