Abstract

     This paper demonstrates the heightened need for a consistent legal and public policy approach to critical management issues regarding “Internet number resources,” which include Internet Protocol (“IP”) addresses and Autonomous System numbers. First, we provide background information on what IP addresses are and how they are used to route Internet traffic. Second, we describe the evolution of the Regional Internet Registries (“RIRs”). The RIRs are non-profit, non-governmental organizations of continental scope that derive their authority from the consent of the Internet community, and from the U.S. Government, which has encouraged the Internet’s private-sector institutions of governance. Third, we describe the open and transparent public policy process that currently creates Internet number resource allocation policies in the American Registry for Internet Numbers (“ARIN”) region, which is representative of the modestly different policy processes in each of the five RIRs. We also describe the more recent creation of the Number Resource Organization (“NRO”) and its modest role in global IP address policy development. Fourth, we contrast the legal nature of domain names with IP addresses, which has been the subject of recent judicial review. Fourth, we describe the serious potential problems resulting from the depletion of the supply of IPv4 addresses, the impact of “legacy” IPv4 address space, the need to adopt IPv6 applications, and other looming technical policy issues.