[address-policy-wg] 2023-04 Discussion scope

Dear Working Group,

During the discussion about AGGREGATED-BY-LIR status for IPv4 PA assignments the argument has been raised that this proposal would substantially change the registration requirements for end-user assignments in the RIPE DB and the discussion has been going around in circles ever since.

We would like to point out the following:

From the RIPE NCC Impact Analysis:

[...]

Acceptance of this proposal will not change the fact that the RIPE NCC cannot enforce which contact details members add to their IPv4 PA assignments in the RIPE Database; this will remain their decision.

[...]

As well as:

It is fact that the RIPE NCC has interpreted the current policy to not require a PA Assignment in the RIPE DB to include the actual name and email address of the end-user since at leas the late 1990s. Registering a PA Assignment with something like "CUSTOMER-1234" and an email address pointing to the LIR has been acceptable for all this time.



In its impact analysis the RIPE NCC has indicated that this proposal does not change this interpretation.

It should therefore be clear that 2023-04 does not in fact change anything regarding how end-user details will actually be registered in PA Assignments.

However, is has been argued that this interpretation is wrong and that PA Assignments in the RIPE DB must include the actual end-user details. And even though this is out of scope for the 2023-04 discussion, it is still something that is worth resolving. As changing this interpretation would be a major departure of many years of accepted practice and potentially involve updating thousands of RIPE DB objects, we feel this discussion would be best served by an independent policy proposal that clarifies the issue and would like to invite the working group to enter one.

Kind regards,

Alex Le Heux, for the Address Policy WG co-chairs