[arin-ppml] Draft Policy ARIN-2025-4: Resource Issuance to Natural Persons

[Tyler O'Meara]

Hi John,

Thanks (to both you and all the ARIN staff) for working to get the reviews done.
For a change like this, they're obviously crucial to an informed discussion here
on the PPML.

The staff suggest using the ACSP to propose this (overarching) change, but the
ACSP doesn't have the authority to change the NRPM, which (to my reading) would
be necessary in order to support natural persons. This would imply a circular
dependency, where the PDP is insufficient for this change because it "would
redefine that scope of ARIN’s customer base", but the ACSP is insufficient
because it lacks the power to actually change the NRPM.

Separately, I disagree with the assertion that this change is out of scope for
the PDP due to Section 2.2.2.3. No part of this proposal defines "the specific
processes by which the Policy Proposal will be implemented by ARIN staff" nor
does it "define or establish services offered by ARIN". It also trivially
doesn't have any impact on fees, but I'm doubting ARIN is asserting otherwise.
The review suggests that this change is out of scope for the PDP because "it
would redefine that scope of ARIN’s customer base", but that is neither a
specific process nor specifying which services ARIN must provide.

If we accept that a change which redefines the scope of ARIN's customer base is
out of scope for the PDP, this would imply that _any_ change to the NRPM which
either expands or decreases eligibility for resources (and therefore,
eligibility to be an ARIN customer) would be out of scope for the PDP. Would a
change to the NRPM which prohibits the allocation of resources to IP lessors
also be out of scope? It clearly "redefine(s) the scope of ARIN's customer base"
by excluding IP lessors, so the same argument would apply as here.

Accordingly, I firmly believe that this Draft Policy is in scope for the PDP,
and given the near universal support it has received thus far, the AC should
continue to work on improving the text. The Legal analysis (although somewhat
contradictory with the staff review[1]) was very helpful, but in light of the
uncertainty of the final text at this stage, was also lacking in specifics. I
think that more detail (which can naturally only be provided once the policy has
been fleshed out more) will be necessary for the ARIN community to determine if
the tradeoffs for more inclusivity vs the legal and operational complixities are
worth it.

In light of the issues raised by the Legal analysis, I revoke my support for
this policy and instead think we should work to improve the text and work to
gain greater clarity as to the costs of this policy.

Thanks,
Tyler

[1] The legal analysis asserts that "Individuals are also less likely than
businesses to have assets available to satisfy liabilities to ARIN", but the
Staff review suggests that they encourage individuals to set up shell business
entities ("ARIN presently does provide number resources and related services to
individuals...; but ARIN accommodates these requests by directing the requester
to first establish a legally recognized business, such as a sole proprietor,
DBA, LLC, or corporation.") just to satisfy ARIN's requirement, and these shell
business entities will naturally have no assets (and certainly no more than the
owning individual) with which to satisfy judgements.


On Wed, 2025-06-04 at 00:39 +0000, John Curran wrote:
> Folks - 
> 
> The (initial)  staff and legal review for Draft Policy ARIN-2025-4 is
> available online in the Policy section of the ARIN website.
> 
> Direct link -
> <https://www.arin.net/participate/policy/drafts/2025_4/#staff-and-legal-review
> -3-june-2025>
> 
> FYI,
> /John
> 
> 
> 
> John Curran
> President and CEO
> American Registry for Internet Numbers
> 
> 
> 
> 
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