[arin-ppml] About needs basis in 8.3 transfers

[Owen DeLong]

On Jun 10, 2014, at 16:39 , Brandon Ross <bross at pobox.com> wrote:

> On Mon, 9 Jun 2014, Owen DeLong wrote:
> 
>> Your third item is absurd. If they don't find sellers with that much space, then it means the market isn't as large as described and the problem is even worse and market capture is even easier. Without a needs test or the other restrictions in 8.3, it would not take years, it would take days. Address space would be swept away as fast as it came available on the market. It would be IP lotto for the uber-wealthy corporations.
> 
> If these bad actors are willing to spend such amounts of money to capture the market, why wouldn't they do this with the needs test in place simply by locking up all the space under contracts instead?

I can't guarantee that they won't. However, if it gets discovered that they have, the collusion required to do so might have interesting implications under the Sherman act. I might be wrong, but I think it would be much harder to make a Sherman Act case if community policy permitted the unrestricted outright sale and transfer.

Owen