US CODE: Title 15, Chapter 1, Section 2.

[Tim Bass]

In response to a few of the more interesting points:

In my opinion, the Justice department will not find
any tangible differences if:

(1) you give IP address space away for free and then
    charge money, in this case $2500.00 to register
    a Class C prefix; or

(2) charge $2500.00 for the address space.

The effects are the same, in my opinion, and it does
not really matter what guise or spin is placed it,
fraudulent or not, the effect is, according to
the proposals, a user of IP address space will pay
to use it and they must pay a single registry in the
US (or part of some pyramid scheme of registries).

The mission of the Antitrust division of USDoJ states:

http://gopher.usdoj.gov/atr/atrovrvw.htm

For over six decades, the mission of the Antitrust Division has been to promote and protect the
competitive process -- and the American economy -- through the enforcement of the antitrust
laws. The antitrust laws apply to virtually all industries and to every level of business, including
manufacturing, transportation, distribution, and marketing. They prohibit a variety of practices that
restrain trade, such as price-fixing conspiracies, corporate mergers likely to reduce the competitive
vigor of particular markets, and predatory acts designed to achieve or maintain monopoly power.

The Division is also committed to ensuring that its essential efforts to preserve competition for the
benefit of businesses and consumers do not impose unnecessary costs on American businesses
and consumers.

The historic goal of the antitrust laws is to protect economic freedom and opportunity by promoting
competition in the marketplace. Competition in a free market benefits American consumers through
lower prices, better quality and greater choice. Competition provides businesses the opportunity to
compete on price and quality, in an open market and on a level playing field, unhampered by
anticompetitive restraints. 

-----------

In my opinion, provider based addressing schemes whereas address space
must be purchased, rented, lease, or registered in a non-competitively
manner might be consider anti-competitive by USDOJ.

In addition, creating a routing paradigm, for whatever goal, which
is causal to to creating an anti-competitive downstream dependency
between ISPs might be of interest to USDOJ.  This type of
anti-competitive scheme is antipodic to the direction of
US Telecom laws, from my limited knowledge of these laws.
Certainly, the Justice Department can answer these questions
much better than 'us engineers'.

Finally, in my opinion, it does not really matter what practices
are accepted in foreign countries.  Firms operating in the
US are subject, I believe, to US Laws, so it is really
off topic to discuss what is happening abroad.  Businesses
practices abroad do not supersede US Federal Law.

The US has traditionally, it seems, lead the world in anticompetitive
laws which protect US consumers and US businesses. The 'rest of the
world' has lagged Telecommunications reforms in the US dramatically.

I have faxed the Antitrust division of DoJ a copy of my paper
on the subject of problem with exterior routing protocols
and provider based addressing (as currently implemented).

http://www.silkroad.com/papers/  (in case anyone cares to read
 what facts DoJ now has in their possession) 

I don't have the answers, but from my research on the subject
and studying the intent and mission of USDOJ Antitrust Division
and the FTC, in the area of anti-competitive processes,
the current proposals by ARIN and the current ISP implementations
of CIDR and provider based addressing are areas which
DoJ Antitrust might be interesting in.

I hope they will take interest, seek comment, create an
open forum for discussion, and issue a formal advisory.

Again, it is only my opinion, and it has been for quite
a few years, the Internet is moving toward anti-competitive
practices and this is primarily due to the provider based
paradigm as implemented today.

Best Regards,

Tim


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