[arin-ppml] ARIN-prop-136 Services Opt-out Allowed for Unaffiliated Address Blocks

[Milton L Mueller]

Good points, John. In terms of details, I don't think it's all that complicated for ARIN to start the process by making it clear that bulk access to its Whois data could be provided on request to other organizations that abide by the restrictions of the bulk access agreement (e.g., no use for marketing/spam). Other RIRs could easily make the same commitment. Frankly, I think providing bulk access to the party who has requested it is not prevented and may be required by current policy. 

In theory, you are correct that the broader contours of policy regarding competitive registries should be developed globally. I'd support that. As a matter of historical fact, however, most such policy innovations don't follow prescribed channels, they tend to be provoked by some disruption that originates opportunistically in one location and then spreads to another.* Nevertheless, ICANN and its ASO could and should initiate a process to deal with it. I'd help with such an effort though don't have the cycles or resources to take responsibility for it, and am not well positioned as the ASO is at present representative of no one by the RIRs. 

One obstacle to a global policy develop process using ICANN as a venue is that ICANN's legitimacy and authority are constantly undermined by the USG and GAC, which compete with it for policy authority. This encourages parties to run to governments when they don't get the results they want from the ICANN process. Given the increasingly high stakes in address policy, I can only imagine how such a scenario might play out in address policy. 

--MM

* think IAHC, 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Curran [mailto:jcurran at arin.net]
> Sent: Thursday, February 24, 2011 6:41 PM
> To: Milton L Mueller
> Cc: ARIN Member Services; arin-ppml at arin.net List
> Subject: Re: [arin-ppml] ARIN-prop-136 Services Opt-out Allowed for
> Unaffiliated Address Blocks
> 
> On Feb 25, 2011, at 7:16 AM, Milton L Mueller wrote:
> 
> > False assumption #1: opting out of ARIN services means no Whois
> record.
> > Fact: Some people are so stuck in the mindset that ARIN and only ARIN
> can offer a Whois service that they are missing the point of this
> proposal. Are you aware of the request by a prospective competitor for
> bulk access to Whois so that it can be reconciled with an alternate
> provider and maintain a globally consistent directory?
> 
> Milton -
> 
> We don't seem to have any actual details regarding how such registries
> might interact with the existing system, what common goals would still
> exist (if any), or even what authority and policies they'd operate
> under.
> Such details are essential to understanding what exactly is being
> proposed when you reference "alternative providers", and as you are
> well-aware, these are the sort of issues that took years to work out in
> the DNS registry system and (to some extent) even now are still evolving
> under guidance from an entire ecosystem of constituencies within ICANN.
> 
> Perhaps addressing those some of these questions via in an actual
> proposal to change ICP-2 could result in a revised framework for
> handling global number resource management?  That certainly would make
> evaluating policy proposals such as ARIN-prop-136 much more
> straightforward.
> 
> If such a change is desired, the most appropriate first step would be
> those who want it to work on a concrete proposal that addresses the
> material issues of introducing a new (non-geographic) competitive
> registry framework. That would allow consideration by the global
> community of the potential issues and benefits from introducing
> commercial registries, and furthermore could be actually discussed in
> open manner which includes governments, business, standards
> organizations and civil society.
> 
> I presume that you are familiar with this sort of process, and hopefully
> can see how the ARIN region considering it independently from the
> current global policy for number resource management would be contrary
> to actually having open and transparent governance for these the global
> number resources?
> 
> /John
> 
> John Curran
> President and CEO
> ARIN