[arin-ppml] ARIN / Microsoft press release regarding IP address Transfers

[Matthew Petach]

On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 12:02 PM, Ted Mittelstaedt <tedm at ipinc.net> wrote:
...
> On 4/16/2011 11:02 AM, Stephen Sprunk wrote:
>> On 16-Apr-11 01:21, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
>>> On 4/15/2011 9:28 PM, Stephen Sprunk wrote:
>>>>
> IF they are for internal use only.  As I said, the math does not
> bear this out.  And you know it since you snipped that part -
> rather than "non-responding" to it, whatever that means.
>
>>> However I think that the amount of IP cannot be justified unless it's
>>> going to MSN, it is just too large.
>>
>> The details of a specific request are usually under NDA, so we must
>> trust that ARIN staff is following whatever policy(ies) apply to it.
>>
>
> And that is really what your entire argument/rant/bitch/fear-response
> can be boiled down to.
>
> Trust ARIN staff.
>
> Because, after all, us children don't know enough to actually question
> the great wise and all-knowing ARIN.
>
> Trust ARIN
>
> Trust ARIN
>
> Trust ARIN
>
> That's all you have to contribute.

Dude.  You can't expect publicly held companies to divulge
information that could have a material impact on their stock
price to the ppml list just to satisfy your curiosity about
whether a transfer was justified or not.

There's no way a company like Microsoft is going to trot
out a statement to the public like "These addresses are
needed for a super-secret cloud initiative we're rolling out
that will crush both Google and Facebook in one fell swoop;
but it's 2 years out, and we have yet to finish building it, but
that's what all this IP space is needed for; now, so that our
shareholders aren't screwed over by hearing about this, please
don't share this information outside the PPML list, mkay?"

If you have that much curiosity about the upcoming projects
being worked on by such companies, you could always apply
for a job at ARIN as a staffer, at which point you'd have access
to such information.  Of course, it would be disclosed to you
under NDA, so you wouldn't be able to tell anyone else about
what you'd learned, no matter how many of them taunted you
or tried to bully you into revealing the information on public policy
mailing lists--but at least you'd know in your heart that the right
thing was being done, and you could give your assurances to
the people on the mailing lists that even though you can't say
anything specific, you were satisfied that the policies currently
in force had been followed appropriately.

Remember--depending on the nature of the information that
ARIN staffers have access to during an allocation of this
magnitude, revealing too much detail to people who may
potentially be investors in the company could violate SEC
regulations and be considered a leak of insider information;
if anyone on PPML subsequently engages in trades of that
company's shares, they could be guilty of engaging in insider
trading, and punished accordingly.

I have perhaps more reason to hate Microsoft than most
others on this list, but even that's not going to blind me to
the reality of the situation here; there's simply no way to
discuss the validity of the needs justification in a public
forum for a publicly held company in a way that doesn't
run afoul of the restrictions around shareholder notifications
of significant information that may materially affect the stock
price of that company.

So...deep breath in...deep breath out...
the same privacy rules that limit what information can be
disclosed about the purpose and usage of these addresses
are the same privacy rules that protect others from snooping
into what each of our respective companies is doing both now
and in our future development efforts.   We can't selectively
decide we want privacy for some, but insist on full disclosure
by others.

OK.  Enough ranting.  :(  Maybe if I go eat some lunch, my
buttons won't be so easily pushed.  :/

Matt