[arin-ppml] ARIN-prop-180 ISP Private Reassignment - ISP liability

[David Farmer]

On 8/15/12 13:38 CDT, John Curran wrote:
> On Aug 15, 2012, at 1:50 PM, "Chu, Yi [NTK]" <Yi.Chu at sprint.com
> <mailto:Yi.Chu at sprint.com>> wrote:
>>
>> Can ARIN staff answer the question whether ISP have legal liability
>> for the reassignment they made on their downstream customers’ behalf?
>
> Yi -
>
>    ARIN cannot provide advice to members regarding their potential legal
>    liabilities; you should seek appropriate legal counsel if this is a
> concern.

Additionally, even if it were reasonable for ARIN to give legal advise 
and for you to take it even if they gave it.  There are so many "it 
depends" on this one regrading issues like what country or jurisdiction, 
the exact details of the situation in question, etc... The question 
itself is almost meaningless.

That said, if an ISP is acting in "Good Faith" making reassignments 
following reasonable business practices, and responding in "Good Faith" 
to any complaints from third parties, it is difficult to conceive how an 
ISP would become legally liable for the activities of their downstream 
customers.  However, I believe part of that "Good Faith" and reasonable 
business practice is to provide and maintain public reassignment 
information allowing third parties to directly contact the downstream 
customer.  Part of that "Good Faith" is to maintain and update that 
information, if you have reason to believe it is not correct.

If that information is not publicly available, it is private, then I 
believe "Good Faith" would require you to act as an agent of the 
downstream customer and at the very least to accept and convey any legal 
paperwork to the downstream customer.  Probably more than that minimum 
for a practical perspective, but from a legal perspective it would be 
absolutely necessary to convey any legal paperwork.





-- 
===============================================
David Farmer               Email:farmer at umn.edu
Networking & Telecommunication Services
Office of Information Technology
University of Minnesota	
2218 University Ave SE	    Phone: 612-626-0815
Minneapolis, MN 55414-3029   Cell: 612-812-9952
===============================================