Dear colleagues, The consultation period in which the RIPE NCC put forward three options to the membership for discussion with regards to how they would like us to proceed with the RIPE Database Proxy Service is concluded. The options were: - Make it a member-only service - Keep the service free for now but bound by a contract - Discontinue the service During this consultation period, there were expressions of support for both keeping it as a free service bound by a contract and discontinuing the service. The RIPE NCC Executive Board took the mailing list opinions into account and has decided to continue this service free of charge while requiring that there be a contract in place. The Executive Board reached this decision as there are very low costs associated with this service and they could not see any strong argument to discontinue this service to the community. They agreed that this would be reviewed again in the future, and they plan to do this for all RIPE NCC services and activities. The RIPE NCC will contact the parties currently using the service to ask them to sign a new agreement. Any new parties wanting to use the service can contact the RIPE NCC to sign the agreement. I would like to point out that this service does not affect the openness or accessibility of the RIPE Database in any way. The information is open and accessible to everyone at all times. Kind regards, Axel Pawlik Managing Director RIPE NCC