[ppml] Policy Proposal 2004-6: Privacy of Reassignment Inform ation

[Azinger, Marla]

The rational of this proposal is sound.  However, I have reservations
regarding what the "side effects" may be if this is approved.

Concern number one:
In truth, everyone these days wants to be anonamous either for security or
to hide their company name from direct blame of the network damage they may
be inflicting.

For example company Z (who is a mass internet provider known throught out
the USA) comes to company D and says they dont want anything available
publicly showing that they are using IP's xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx or else they wont
do business with company D.  Company Z and company D both know the reason
they dont want the IP's being linked directly to their name is because they
know they allow spammers on their network and they dont want any bad
publicity.  

Currently, company D does not feel pressure to trash their own network name
and hide the identity of the true user because it is required by current
policy to make the true user information known by any provider they choose
to lease circuits from.  However, if this policy is approved then there will
be pressure to allow such things to happen because company Z will easily go
to a competitor who is more than willing to "hide" who they are and not
worry about trashing their network.

I know many people will say that no one would do this because they dont want
to trash their network.  But it always comes down to the bottom line and
that bottom line is that money talks.  

This could easily be a problem for smaller providers because they can not
afford to either turn away business or trash their network with a spam
hider.  Either way in this scenario the smaller provider would lose out by
losing a new potential customer or by losing an old customer that's irrated
with the drop in quality of network provided.

I'm not saying that larger companies are bullet proof to this but we all
know the larger your network is....the bigger risk you can take.


Concern number two:
Should this be passed it will soon be a tool customers will use to bargain
with what provider they will go with.  There will be a large number of
customers that will lease through the provider that hides their true user
identity.  If this occurs than just about every provider will be
"influenced" into hiding true user information in order to keep new business
coming in and retain the customers they have.  This in turn would effect the
number of people the Provider has working on their abuse team because abuse
complaints would no longer first go directly to the abuser but to the
provider instead.

This could easily have a negative effect on small providers that do not have
alot of money to create much larger abuse teams than they already have in
place.


Regards
Marla Azinger
Electric Lightwave

-----Original Message-----
From: Member Services [mailto:memsvcs at arin.net]
Sent: Thursday, September 09, 2004 7:41 AM
To: ppml at arin.net
Subject: [ppml] Policy Proposal 2004-6: Privacy of Reassignment
Information


Concerning the proposed policy, Privacy of Reassignment Information, which
was posted to PPML on August 19, 2004, the ARIN Advisory Council supports
moving the proposed policy (as is) forward in the evaluation process.

ARIN welcomes feedback and discussion about this policy proposal in the
weeks leading to the ARIN Public Policy Meeting in Reston, Virginia
scheduled for October 20-21, 2004.

According to the ARIN Internet Resource Policy Evaluation Process the
Advisory Council will evaluate policy proposals after the Public Policy
Meeting. The feedback and discussion of policy proposals on the Public
Policy Mailing List will be included in the AC's evaluation.

Subscription information for the ARIN Public Policy Mailing List can be
found at:

	http://www.arin.net/mailing_lists/index.html

The ARIN Internet Resource Policy Evaluation Process can be found at:

	http://www.arin.net/policy/ipep.html

ARIN's Policy Proposal Archive can be found at:

	http://www.arin.net/policy/proposal_archive.html

The policy proposal text is below and can be found at:

	http://www.arin.net/policy/2004_6.html

Regards,

Member Services
American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN)


### * ###


Policy Proposal 2004-6: Privacy of Reassignment Information

Author: Sanford George

Policy Statement:

ISPs may choose whether or not to designate reassignment information
'public'. Reassignment information that is not designated 'public' will be
available only to ARIN, the entity that created it, and that entity's
upstream organizations.  The maintenance of the accuracy of the data that
is submitted whether it is public or private is the responsibility of the
submitting ISP.

Rationale:

Increasing concern about protection of private information on the Internet
has been expressed by many parts of the community.  There have been
numerous policy proposals over the last several years attempting to
protect various portions of the displayed information. Concern has been
expressed specifically about the requirement to publicly register customer
assignments, which are often regarded by ISPs and customers as private
information.

By publicly displaying reassignment information, the ISP is in some
respects displaying its customer lists and other information that may be
considered of a proprietary business interest.