This policy is directed at ISPs and at their customers.
Registration data (range, contact information, status etc.) must be correct at all times (i.e. they have to be maintained). Every organisation controlling an IP address should provide at least one working contact e-mail address where notifications of abuse emanating from that IP address can be sent.
A company in the SPAM business could be in full compliance with this policy if they operate an auto-responder like RIPE's hostmaster mailbox, which replies to every email saying "Thank you for your concern. We will deal with the matter promptly". The net benefit to the Internet community would be zero.
All persons and organisations assigned an IP address should act to prevent abusive messages originating from that IP address.
I don't believe that RIPE has any authority over what ISP customers do with their Internet connection. If a customer has a contract with and ISP for the purposes of originating abusive messages, then what authority does RIPE have to forbid this? On the other hand, if this is something which should be forbidden, who is the proper authority to take action? My answers are "None" and "National governments". A few days ago, whilst riding the tube to work, I was looking over someone's shoulder reading the newspaper. It was one of the cheap tabloids, possible the Sun. There was an advert for a company that offered to send abusive phone messages to someone else for a fee. It was an 0900 number which you dialled, then selected from a menu of message types, and then gave the number to be called. The choices were "Stop seeing my boyfriend", "Stop seeing my girlfriend", "Last notice to pay parking fine", "Mortgage reposession of home", etc. Clearly, there is at least one UK business that has a contract with a UK phone company for the purpose of originating abusive messages. Apparently, the regulator does not prohibit this, although maybe they simply don't know about it yet. In any case, the problem of sending abusive messages clearly does exist outside the Internet therefore it is NOT an Internet problem. If abusive messages are considered bad by society, then society should pass a law in the usual way rather than foisting unenforceable rules on the RIPE community. --Michael Dillon P.S. I am opposed to sending abusive messages and I would like to see them disappear from the Internet. But I also do not believe that any technical measures targetted at abusive messages will ever work since the perpetrators just discover new ways to avoid those measures. I really don't want to give the perpetrators an incentive to corrupt RIPE or the RIPE NCC which is what I believe will happen if RIPE gets in their way.