On 7 Apr 2022, at 2:08 AM, Owen DeLong 
<o...@delong.com<mailto:o...@delong.com>> wrote:

Indeed - you only emphasize why it is important for organizations to get 
involved in ARIN’s governance…  It is not intended that your sole interaction 
with ARIN be via contractual mechanisms, but rather that network operators 
actually participate as members of the organization.

Perhaps the only bright spot in the recent change to the fee structure is that 
I now have membership open to me without having to pay an extra $500/year for 
the privilege.

Prior to this most recent change, end-users were not afforded such 
participation.

Correct.

Even with the most recent change, the board still opted to default all end 
users to second class citizenry unless they each took specific actions to opt 
in to participation in ARIN governance.

Correct as well - with the understanding that the “specific action” that one 
needs to take is simply asking to be a General Member; i.e. confirming your 
organization’s intent to vote in ARIN elections and acknowledging that your 
organization will be publicly listed on the General Member list.   
<https://www.arin.net/participate/oversight/membership/faq/>

Having a record of such acknowledgement is desirable for record keeping 
purposes, and yes, in theory we could have forced the entire 7000+ existing 
ARIN general members on day one of the membership structure change to undertake 
the exact same consent process in order to retain their General Member status 
and be able to vote – but that would have been significant member 
disenfranchisement for something that ARIN can just as easily obtain for 
pre-existing general members on a rolling basis going forward.

My apologies if the handling of this leaves with the impression of being “a 
second class” citizen, as that was not intent at all (rather we are just 
handling a very significant change in our membership structure in the most 
pragmatic manner possible.)

Best wishes,
/John

John Curran
President and CEO
American Registry for Internet Numbers




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