Hello List, Here is my trial balloon attempting to offer a policy which prevents gaming. The concept is that it is simpler to attack the incentive than wade into the quagmire of defining legitimate business operations. I propose that new RIPE LIRs get their /22, but it only becomes fully vested as an asset after 5 years. Before that time, RIPE won't allow these 185/8 addresses to be transferred without RIPE being paid the balance of the 5 years' worth of membership fees. So the new LIR gets the /22 and pays the annual membership fee to RIPE. After 5 payments the addresses are fully transferable. If the new LIR goes out of business and returns the addresses, they don't owe anything further. If the new LIR wants to sell the addresses, he first has to pay the balance of 5 years membership dues to RIPE. So if he sells the addresses after one year, he has to pay four years of RIPE membership dues before they process the transfer. This lets the new LIR accumulate asset value in the addresses over time and gives him the option of selling or returning the addresses. I chose 5 years because right now 5 years of RIPE fees is roughly the cost for a /22. This will not be overly burdensome to RIPE staff, as analysis is only performed when and if a transfer of 185/8 addresses is submitted. This will not require judgement calls on the part of RIPE staff. If prices skyrocket, we can adjust the number of years. (Not commenting on prior policy but providing commentary on Mr.Huberman's post.) Thoughts? Regards, Mike Burns IPTrading.com -----Original Message----- From: address-policy-wg [mailto:address-policy-wg-bounces@ripe.net] On Behalf Of David Huberman Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2015 9:59 AM To: address-policy-wg@ripe.net Subject: [address-policy-wg] Next steps for new LIRs Hello, I think it is time to consider the next step for dealing with the problem of a few individuals opening up dozens of LIRs for the exclusive purpose of selling the /22s. Such activity is outright fraud, and something the NCC should tackle with the assistance of the APWG. Obvious point 1: It is very difficult to write policy text which stops such behavior, but does not impact legitimate market behavior. Obvious point 2: The NCC staff likely know when a request is a duplicate of previous requests. (Or at least, in many cases they do.) We had discussed in Amsterdam that perhaps it was best to empower the staff to stop the activity when it is clear to them that such activity is taking place. So how about a policy sentence that reads something like: "When RIPE NCC staff have reason to believe a LIR is being opened for the purposes of selling the IPv4 block allocation, such a request may be denied." Just throwing out ideas, David David R Huberman Principal, Global IP Addressing Microsoft Corporation