[address-policy-wg] 2007-08 New Policy Proposal (Enabling Methods for Reallocation of IPv4 Resources)

> > In effect, this proposal enables a market for buying and selling IP 
> > address blocks.
> 
> It is envisioned that this market is going to happen, whether 
> we like it or not, and there is not much we can do against it.

Envisaged by who?

ICANN and the Number Resource Organization both maintain that
IP addresses are not property and therefore they cannot be bought
or sold. It does not matter if a few individuals disagree because 
a few individuals do not control many IP addresses. Most IP addresses
have been allocated to publicly traded companies and these companies 
have an obligation to act in an ethical manner which makes it impossible
for these companies to buy or sell IP addresses. 

> But in the case that this *is* going to happen, we would very 
> much prefer to have accurate records on who is holding the 
> address space - and this proposal is trying to build the 
> basis for this.

In the case that selling does happen, and in the case that addresses
are transferred for other reasons, ARIN has a policy that covers
transfers. Everyone should really read that policy to see how this
could be handled without violating the principles maintained by
ICANN and the NRO
http://www.arin.net/policy/nrpm.html#eight

> (We already have the means for resource transfers between 
> LIRs, it's part of the "merger and closures" document, but 
> it's not very well-defined in the case of two independent 
> LIRs doing this without any "merger or closure").

ARIN's policy does try to cover the general situation without
being narrowly focussed on corporate mergers. I am not suggesting
that RIPE should just copy ARIN, but we need to look at this
poloicy proposal in context, and that includes what other RIRs
are doing, the basic NRO/ICANN principles, and EU competition law.

--Michael Dillon