If you are interested in understanding this then start here http://nys-stlc.syr.edu/lawlibrary/antitrust/antitrustbasics.aspx
This includes important gold nuggets such as ".. whether the practice complained of _unreasonably_ restrains competition", "The true test of legality is whether the restraint imposed is such as _merely regulates_ and perhaps thereby promotes competition ..."
Yes, of course. All laws are like that, especially in a country like the USA which relies heavily on common-law and case-law precedents. People who live and work in the ARIN region tend to develop a gut feel for what is legal and what is not based on their experience in business and exposure to local media. I don't think it is productive to try and second guess on this list, what an American judge might decide.
No, the discussion has been recently brought up at least on those lists, and it would seem unwise to repeat it on every list. Even if each region made its own policies, it might be much easier for everyone (IMHO) if the discussion was held on a common list, and then when the time comes, folks would each go to their own individual RIR to make their informed or uninformed decisions.
On that, I disagree with you. That kind of centralised system defeats the bottom up nature of the existing RIRs.
Based on observations in v4 land, there are sites that specifically want to do something other than the first option, and I specifically want to preclude them from doing so.
It is probably not too late to suggest that the ARIN AC include the same "no deaggregation" language as was used for IPv6 LIRs. This was discussed tangentially at the meeting and I don't recall any of the speakers objecting to that. On the other hand, ARIN policy cannot restrict what two peers do between themselves. At this point in time, the global routing table is merely a convenient phrase used in routing discussions. There really is no such thing. Nobody manages the global routing table. There are no explicit agreements on what can or cannot be announced into the global routing table. And so on. If that were to change then your issues would be perfectly within scope. However, this would require the ARIN Board of Trustees to agree to undertake this activity. Interestingly enough, this does seem to be within ARIN's scope if you read items 2, 3, 4 and 6 of the purposes in the ARIN Articles of Incorporation. Assuming that there was to be an RIR function which produced guidelines for management of the global routing table, how would it operate and how would it ensure industry-wide consensus on those rules? --Michael Dillon