[arin-ppml] Microsoft receives court approval for transfer as agreed with ARIN

[John Curran]

On Apr 28, 2011, at 2:31 PM, David Conrad wrote:
> 
> ARIN does not have a monopoly on the ability to run a whois server. If ARIN refuses to list a transfer that has occurred, it devalues the ARIN registry (at least in the eyes of folks who are interested in tracking down who is actually using address space).  Devalue the registry enough and folks will look elsewhere.

We run it for the community by their policies... presumably such concerns
are taken into consideration when the policies are developed.

>> We believe that the number resources should be managed by a multi-stakeholder, private 
>> sector led, bottom-up policy development model of technical coordination that 
>> acts for the benefit of global Internet users.  
> 
> Oddly, I've heard that chant before, even partaken of it myself on occasion.  However, there is this thing called "reality" where "should be" doesn't necessarily correlate with "are".

Care to explain?

> The reality (at least as I see it) is that at least some legacy holders believe (if they consider the question at all) that the IP addresses in their inventory are their asset to do with as they please.  As far as I can tell, they do not see any positive business incentive in participating in a system or process that does not recognize this.  Clearly there are those in the ARIN community that disagree with this view.  However, ARIN is not a government granted monopoly and does not have the power of law to enforce its views outside of contractual relationships.  It is a 501(c)(6) trade association that acts as a meeting place where like minded entities can come together to devise their own rules as to how they go about doing things.  Attempting to apply those rules to folks who are not like minded is unlikely to be a long-term viable proposition.

David - ARIN doesn't need a contract to administer its own Whois 
database in accordance with the community policies.  Parties who
wish to cause us to operate contrary to those policies are the ones 
who have sought courts (unsuccesfully) to gain such a precedent.

/John