Despite the ideas for this proposal being fairly well understood and supported by almost everyone, there has been quite some history with this proposal, obvious result of ARIN political process. So this webpage is setup to give easy access to all versions of proposal, its history and as well other related documents.
For Quick Access, here is the link
to the latest version of proposal on ARIN website
And local copy (or rather original) of proposal is available here
And this version on ARIN website is here
Below are various versions of this proposal:
Version 2.11 (result of integrating feedback from AC - i.e. its version above and other user feedback and improving 2.0 text)
Primary purpose of this proposal is to provide at some protection (at least on paper) against improper use of ARIN whois data and to regulate who can have access to it and how. It can be noted that all other RIRs and almost all domain registries have some kind of UP that is displayed when you query whois and ARIN remains the only major registry that does not and based on that anybody can use data collected from ARIN whois for whatever reasons they choose (such as for marketing though email and other means, which actions are opposed by everyone and typically prohibited by AUPs of all other registries).
Primary opposition to proposal comes primarily from one person - chair of the ARIN Advisory Council, who is however in the position to stop the proposal which he tried to do several times (see below). The latest reason he gave to the author was that ARIN would not be able to enforce this AUP and find people responsible (i.e. that spammers and abusers can't be located - which is not true as has been shown for example by the work done by spamhaus and the the fact that Attorney General of New York and law enforcement of several other states currently have civil actions pending and all the people responsible have been found and served legal papers). It can also be noted that court cases exist that show that registries can in fact enforce their AUPs if it becomes necessary and when its well known who is violating the AUP (see case of Register.Com against Verio) and stopping access as means of enforcement is now common practice by both NICs (.com/.net registries and .uk and similar country registries) and by all other IP registries (RIPE, APNIC and LACNIC will all disable access if you access the whois registry too many times from same location and when asked about it, they usually refer the person to their AUP and information on bulk whois access).
It can also be noted that all comments made during previous meetings regarding text of the proposal have been incorporated either directly or indirectly by the author into the latest version of the proposal. The comments from latest meeting support author's position that ARIN legal council should be allowed to write actual text of the AUP as he sees appropriate (given original AUP main points that data should not be used improperly such as for marketing purposes) and that ARIN should provide guidelines on what should be done with violators through different proposal but not mix it with this one.
Everything below is the history of the proposal (so sorted by date from oldest):
Mar 03, 2003: First published draft of the AUP proposal - http://www.arin.net/mailing_lists/ppml/1281.html
Thread start of some discussion about that draft and proposal
in general: http://www.arin.net/mailing_lists/ppml/1293.html
Mar 06, 2003: Policy proposal officially announced by ARIN - this
is the text of the proposal as it was then (version 1.0)
The official announcement and text sent to arin mailing list
is here: http://www.arin.net/mailing_lists/ppml/1328.html
Note: at this time the proposal received ARIN reference
number "2003-9"
April 08, 2003: This policy proposal is discussed on the ARIN XI Public Policy Meeting in Memphis, TN.
April 08, 2003: ARIN
Advisory Council following the ARIN public policy meeting discusses the proposal
and abandons it
Comment from AC following request to explain why policy
was abandoned: http://www.arin.net/mailing_lists/ppml/1450.html
Comments by proposal author on AC decision: http://www.arin.net/mailing_lists/ppml/1471.htm
http://www.arin.net/mailing_lists/ppml/1484.html
April 29, 2003: New version of the proposal is made, as previous proposal is
to be abandoned. this version is made as separate proposal but is a result of
user feedback into version 1.0. The
text of this version (2.0) is available here
Actual message to ppml mailing list is here: http://www.arin.net/mailing_lists/ppml/1615.html
May 08, 2003: Notes
from ARIN Advisory Council meeting on May 08 as it relates to Whois AUP.
(AC decided to on its own use version 2.0 of the proposal without notifying
anybody about it. Note that since that version was introduced as new proposal,
it was not up to AC to work on it until after it would have been reviewed on the
next meeting)
May 21, 2003: The issue related to this proposal comes up again on mailing
list and there is some discussion about it:
http://www.arin.net/mailing_lists/ppml/1674.html
http://www.arin.net/mailing_lists/ppml/1677.html
Author of proposal indicates an official appeal letter will
be sent to AC and BoT to reconsider abandoning of 2003-9 proposal
http://www.arin.net/mailing_lists/ppml/1680.html
http://www.arin.net/mailing_lists/ppml/1682.html
AC indicates they are working on their own version of Whois
AUP proposal and it'll be published shortly
http://www.arin.net/mailing_lists/ppml/1681.html
http://www.arin.net/mailing_lists/ppml/1685.html
May 29, 2003: AC privately provided author with its proposal and it along with other feedback is incorporated into version 2.1 of Whois AUP proposal which is sent back to AC. AC agreed to review the new version
June 3, 2003: Letter
officially requesting to withdraw decision to abandon policy proposal 2003-9
is sent to AC
(Note: the letter was prepared May 25 - May 28 but AC was not aware of its
content until June 3, 2003 so discussions on May 29, 2003 were not started
because of the letter. The letter was slightly modified on May 29 to be sent the
next day. Very similar - 95% same content letter also existed in draft for BoT
but was never sent.
June 4, 2003: Following approval by AC of the new version of proposal (and their reversal of their previous decision to abandon this proposal). ARIN officially presents community with modified version of proposal. See http://www.arin.net/announcements/20030604.html
July 17, 2003: AC briefly discusses new version of proposal and agrees to support it. It is noted that due to substantial changes to the policy proposal it will need to go through another ARIN meeting.
October 22, 2003: Version 2.11 of the proposal is presented at ARIN XII meeting and receives favorable reaction from the attendees with question "if you accept policy proposal 2003-9" receiving if 26:1 vote for
October 23, 2003: ARIN AC discussed the proposal at their meeting, the first call is to accept it and forward to BoT as is. This was however opposed by AC Chair who thought to abandon the proposal instead and have AC instead. In the end AC expressed desire to remove the legal language from the proposal and make it equivalent for all forms of data access.
October 24, 2003: Chair of the AC quickly mentioned results of the AC meeting and decisions on proposals during ARIN member meeting. Chair of the AC said that proposal language would be checked with new ARIN legal council and that AC should be able to have the policy passed on to BoT afterwards without necessity of additional meeting.
October 24, 2003: During third day of ARIN meeting, chair of the AC discussed with the author the reasons why the proposal was not immediately adapted by AC. He said that new ARIN council has said that proposal can not be accepted as is because it contains legal language and that can not be part of the public policy and that ARIN AC will work with ARIN legal council to correct it and send new version of proposal to BoT during next several months (Note: this was not true representation and in fact as was later found ARIN legal council did not say that during AC meeting and may not have been there at all. Additionally as author knew ARIN legal council already reviewed this proposal and said it was acceptable back in the summer of 2003). Author of the proposal asked to be kept informed about what will happen in regards to this proposal.
December 2003, January 2004: Legal council review takes longer then expected as AC briefly mentions on December 18 and January 15 meetings
February 26, 2004: During ARIN AC meeting its mentioned that ARIN council has reviewed the policy proposal and has number of comments about it that will need to be reviewed.
April 6, 2004: ARIN AC finally contacted author of the proposal and provided comments from the ARIN council. Majority of council's comments centered on that he believed stronger actions are required if somebody violates the policy and that ARIN should have an option to stop doing business with such entity. Author of the policy proposal provided comments back to AC and ARIN council and modified policy in such a way as to allow ARIN council freedom to set stronger AUP if he thought it was desirable but keeping main points of the AUP that were already supported in previous meeting.
April 14, 2004: New version of policy proposal (which was also slightly revised by AC with the agreement of the author) was posted to ARIN policy mailing list. This version has all legal language removed and replaced with general guidelines for ARIN legal council
April 20, 2004: Policy proposal was presented at ARIN XIII public policy meeting. This was the last proposal to be presented on the last day of the public policy meeting and there appeared to have been some apathy on behalf of the attendees. The main points discussed were of the enforcement of such AUP policy where Chair of the AC though it was impossible while ARIN council though it was possible but stronger direction and wording would be needed for the policy. The author pointed out that he was not against stronger enforcement policy but did not think this needed to be included specifically with this policy proposal guidelines. Another member of the AC suggested that separate policy proposal can address on what happens when somebody violates ARIN policies and this was supported by the author of the proposal. Very few participate in the vote that followed (less then 10 people voting total - see comments above about this being last proposal) with Chair of the AC and two people sitting next to him voting against it (which still made for 2:1 vote for the proposal).
April 20, 2004: During the meeting of the ARIN AC, the chair has proposed to abandon this policy proposal due to his own opposition and that there was no overwhelming support shown for the proposal during the voting (as has been the case previous times). It can be noted that previous meetings support for the proposal should have been taken into the account by the AC especially considering such a low interest in voting for or against it during this meeting.