[Apologies for duplicate emails] Dear colleagues, Thank you for your comments on this issue. I would like to point out that the *DRAFT* Activity Plan and Budget is published around September of each year, allowing members ample time to read it before it is discussed at the Autumn General Meeting. The RIPE NCC Executive Board then takes the outcome of the discussions and any new developments into consideration before finalising and approving the definitive Activity Plan and Budget, which is then published before the end of the year. On 13 December 2012, we informed the membership of the definitive Activity Plan and Budget and listed the changes from the draft plan. Please note that the membership does not vote on either the draft or the final Activity Plan and Budget - this is one of the member-elected Executive Board's functions. One of the modifications that took place from the draft to the final Activity Plan was the addition of the RIPE Database Proxy Service as a member-only service. This was a follow-up on an action point that stemmed from the Data Protection Task Force and a need to strengthen our contractual relationship between the current users of the RIPE Database Proxy Service and the RIPE NCC ensuring compliance with Dutch and EU legislation. Partially based on the membership's vote of approval regarding the new Charging Scheme of "one LIR, one fee" and partially based on the fact that the RIPE Database Proxy Service is only actively used by less than a handful of entities (both members and non-members), the Executive Board made the decision, which they felt was in the members' interest, to ask the users of this service to sign both a specific RIPE Database Proxy Service Agreement and the Standard Service Agreement (Membership Agreement) that adheres to both EU and Dutch legislation, which would entail the users of this service paying the annual membership fee. Based on the recent mailing list discussions it seems apparent that this is a contentious issue that requires further membership and community discussion. Therefore, we will keep the RIPE Database Proxy Service running as it was in 2012 (i.e., no fee and no Membership Agreement) until we have completed these discussions. We will prepare a legal analysis of the options at hand for the contractual documentation required to use this service and gauge whether or not the membership feels that we should charge a fee for this service. Regards, Axel Pawlik Managing Director RIPE NCC