David Conrad wrote:
Steve,
On Feb 18, 2008, at 11:33 PM, Steven M. Bellovin wrote:
This is a strong argument for regulation of the market. A regulated market could provide liquidity needed by those who would otherwise find <unregulated> means to accomplish their ends (such as making private deals that are perhaps undetectable).
I have no problem with regulating markets -- I tend to think they work better that way.
Given the decentralized nature of the Internet and the lack of a single legal/policy regime that covers it, the challenge is in identifying viable candidates for the regulator.
That is a big challenge in this space, considering that there is no particular national alignment in the address structure. The approach in the proposals so far is to attempt to create a framework around recognition of market-based outcomes that act as implicit constraints on the market. The proposals so far for recognition of address transfers in ARIN, RIPE and APNIC all attempt to define a class of transactions that would be regarded as eligible for entering in their respective address registries. That said, they each propose a different set of constraints! Geoff