We've recently experienced a storm of customer complaints after starting to use IP addresses from a new allocation/assignment. The IP block was earlier in use by a German company. The result is that services like Google and Yahoo assume users are from Germany and presents content accordingly. Some users have also reported that they are excluded from certain services. A quick web search reveals that this is a pretty common problem. While not blaming RIPE or the other RIRs, we believe this problem should be addressed, and that the initiative has to come from the RIRs. I would like to propose that RIPE NCC works together with other RIRs to see if it's possible to implement procedures/routines to notify providers and users of IP geolocation services of new, relocated and deleted allocations. Also, one should probably consider if it's a need for a (distributed?) database with more fine-grained location data than the whois database currently provides (also, I've been told that licensing issues prohibits geolocation providers from using the RIR DBs directly, but I've not been able to verify this). Apologies in advance if this has been discussed before -- I searched the archive, but got no hits. -- -o) Vegard Svanberg, CTO - Monsternett (www.monsternett.no) /\\ Violgata 3A, N-1776 HALDEN, NORWAY _\_v Phone: (+47) 69701802 | Fax: (+47) 69701801