Policy Proposal 2004-7: Residential Customer Privacy Policy [Archived]

Status: Abandoned

Tracking Information

Discussion Tracking

Mailing List:

Formal introduction on PPML on 9 September 2004

Announcement of intent to abandon posted on 10 December 2004Public Policy Mailing List

ARIN Public Policy Meeting:

ARIN XIV

ARIN Advisory Council:

21 October 2004

ARIN Board of Trustees:

BoT Meetings

Revisions:

Implementation:

Author(s):

William Leibzon An organization with downstream residential customer who is not engaged in business activities may substitute that organization’s name for the customer’s name, e.g. ‘Private customer - XYZ Network’, and the customer’s street address may read ‘Private Residence’. Each private downstream residential reassignment must be less then or equal to 128 ips and have accurate upstream Abuse and Technical POCs visible on the WHOIS record for that block.

The intent of residential customer privacy was to allow private citizens to have privacy and safety in their personal life while being able to request and use more then 8 ip addresses with residenial dsl line.

However soon after implementation it became clear that some of the ip blocks being designated as “Private customer” are being used for business purposes which is clearly seen by size of such reassignments as 69.111.160.0/22. While it is not unexpected that some people may run business (including internet businesses) from their home, the laws regard such activity as being similar to running business from small office and usually require such businesses to receive a license from appropriate local or state agency and to disclose the activity to the public, as such different privacy rules apply in these situations.

This policy replaces current residential customer privacy 2003-3 and requires that ISPs only designate reassignment whois data as “Private Customer” if no business activity is involved with use of the ip block.

The limit for the reassignment is set to 128 ips as larger number of computers in one residence is likely an indication of business activity (as an example currently telephone companies allow up to 4 residential telephone lines and if somebody needs larger number of telephone lines to his home, those must be purchased as business telephone lines). Additionally the amendment fixes small grammer error in current policy text that involves incorrect use of plural and singular tenses.