I violently agree you should conduct due diligence when purchasing any company to make you get what you thought you were getting. Much like when Anheuser-Busch bought SeaWorld and forgot to check the contract to see if it included Shamu. Or BBN actually counting the routers in BARRNET to see if they matched the ones on the books. I've been told the ISPs' auditors are doing due diligence of the peering agreements in this case. On the other hand, of all the peering battles I've heard about, I've never heard of a peering agreement being terminated as a result of a change of ownership of the ISP. Even in Verio's case, when Verio was both a customer and a peer of different providers as it bought various providers (most companies have strict policies against peering with customers), from my outside (without NDA information) place, I didn't notice peering sessions suddenly going away. On Thu, 20 April 2000, Randy Bush wrote:

...

...

...such relationships are not always 'transferrable,' and one should evaluate any existing contractual agreements regarding said relationships before making such assumptions.

So even though Jeff's statement is technically true, I don't think it is very practical.

it is extremely practical. and when purchasing an asset, review of contracts is exceedingly prudent. and the confidentiality of those contracts is not an issue as the contract review is under nda.