[arin-ppml] Policy Proposal: Whois Authentication Alternatives

[Stephen Sprunk]

Lee Dilkie wrote:
> Micah Anderson wrote:
>   
>> People keep saying this about the $100, as if this was well
>> established fact, based on some data. Why do people keep asserting
>> this, I'd like to know what I missed.   
>>     
> Many months ago I asserted that I *do* have a problem with $100/yr for
> simply maintaining a whois and reverse lookup database. The cost is
> excessive for such an obviously trival task (considering the infrequency
> of changes).
>   

I'll point out that the $100/yr maintenance fee is the same charged to 
_any_ org that has _any_ number of assignments under RSA or LRSA.  Now, 
if you'd prefer to pay $10/yr per object, like you do with domain names, 
that's a valid suggestion to put to the BoT, who are the folks that set 
the fee schedule (not PPML).  If you think that a flat fee is good, but 
that it's too high, consider the number of orgs that have dozens to 
hundreds of objects, and that has to be averaged out.

(One could make an argument that a per-object fee would incent returns 
or aggregation requests, but IMHO that's a different matter.)

> Other will, and have, pointed out that ARIN spends lots of $ vetting new
> assignments and that's where the money goes. To which I answered, what
> does that have to do with me? If new assignments cost more to approve
> than they used to, then those costs should be born by the new assignees,
> much like land development charges that cities apply to new development
> projects.
>   

That _should_ be covered by the initial assignment/allocation fees, not 
maintenance fees.  Maintenance fees should only be paying for the cost 
of keeping WHOIS and rDNS running after the assignments are made.  Note 
that maintenance fees for allocations _are_ higher, due to the cost of 
all those SWIP transactions, which assignments shouldn't incur.

Also, please keep in mind that all fees contain a contribution to 
support the public policy process, outreach activities, and other 
resources and services for the community at large that inherently must 
be "free" to the beneficiaries.

S