[arin-ppml] Change of Use and ARIN (was: Re: AFRINIC And The Stability Of The Internet Number Registry System)

[John Curran]

On 7 Sep 2021, at 11:12 PM, arin-ppml at arin.net<mailto:arin-ppml at arin.net> wrote:
...
My uneducated view is that ARIN was kinda caught by surprise by the bidding process and the fact that prefixes had legally become assets.

Michel -

A most excellent question - I guess it depends on what you mean by sale of “an IP address block"…   ARIN considers address holders to have been issued of set of limited rights to a particular entry in the ARIN registry database - we already knew that such contractual rights could be transferred (in accordance with the terms of contract) as an asset of an estate, and were prepared if we ever got notice of such a proposed sale.

Mike Burns suggested that with respect to the Nortel sale that "the whole process transpired in complete ignorance of ARIN transfer policies” and ARIN’s transfer had no relevance on the deal  "until the auction was completed and the deal done.” – but if that was the case, then why was ARIN even notified?   If the entire deal was done and the assets already transferred then why was ARIN given written notice of the Proposed Sale order before it was approved?

If you believe that those issued IP address blocks gained some strange mysterious quark-like particle that has nothing to do with the actual address registry, then there’s absolutely no reason ARIN should have been involved at all in the transfer – pay the man, take the “thing” and go forth!

However, it’s fairly hard to have an actual transfer of anything unless someone gets paid – and if that payment is contingent on the updating of the ARIN Whois entry record for block in question then it all becomes much clearer why (a) nothing was sold until ARIN become involved, (b) ARIN’s involvement and consent to the sale was quite essential, and (c) compliance with ARIN’s transfer policy became rather important to the whole process.

I don’t see how anyone views “IP address blocks” as anything other than a set of rights to a particular entry in the Internet number registry, particularly since that’s what gets changed upon issuance.  However, mind you, there’s still people talking about IP address “things" out there unrelated to the actual number registry – caveat emptor!

FYI,
/John

John Curran
President and CEO
American Registry for Internet Numbers




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