Summary

  • ARIN’s Draft Policy 2026-3 remains under discussion. Its policy statement is to retire NRPM 6.4.1; it does not amend the RSA or show replacement language.
  • The current NRPM, current RSA and archived agreements use different formulations. ARIN says existing organizations do not have to adopt each new RSA version, so “put it in the agreement” still leaves a version question.

A deletion is not a destination

ARIN’s current draft page names the proposal “NRPM Section 6.4.1 Retirement.” Its problem statement says property or other rights belong in the Registration Services Agreement rather than the Number Resource Policy Manual. Yet the operative sentence does only one thing: retire 6.4.1. There is no accompanying RSA redline, no replacement clause and no table showing which agreement text would govern different holders.

That gap does not prove the proposal is legally defective or that retirement would change anyone’s rights. It is a document-completeness question. If the policy’s authors intend to relocate a proposition, readers need to see its destination. If they intend to remove the proposition without replacement, the public record should say that plainly. “This belongs elsewhere” is not the same instruction as “here is the clause that now applies.”

The distinction matters because the current policy sentence is not just a heading. NRPM 6.4.1 says it is contrary to the document’s goals for address space to be considered freehold property. Its next sentence says globally unique IPv6 unicast space is allocated or assigned for use rather than owned. The subsection sits inside the manual’s IPv6 principles. One sentence speaks broadly about address space; the next explicitly identifies IPv6 unicast space. A careful review should say which proposition the draft means to retire and what reach it believes that language has today.

The current agreement uses a different vocabulary

NRPM section 2.8 already says that number resources issued under ARIN’s policies are subject to a contractual agreement between ARIN and the resource holder, and calls past and future forms of that agreement the RSA. That links the manual and contract. It does not make their text interchangeable.

The posted RSA is version 14.0, dated 15 August 2025. Section 2(b) lists three express rights, subject to the service terms: the exclusive right to be registrant in ARIN’s database, the right to use included resources within that database, and the right to transfer registration under the policies. Section 7 then says the holder acquires express contractual rights to those resources. It is not the former section titled “No Property Rights.”

The agreement’s opening also incorporates the NRPM and other published policies into its Service Terms. If there is an inconsistency, the RSA prevails only to the extent of that inconsistency. This is a layered arrangement: the policy manual remains part of the service terms, while the contract names specific holder rights and a rule for conflicts between the documents. Retiring a policy sentence would therefore remove text from one layer. The draft does not show what, if anything, would be inserted into the other.

ARIN has already changed the contractual wording

There is a useful precedent. In 2022, ACSP Suggestion 2022.18 asked ARIN to remove the then-current RSA/LRSA section titled “No Property Rights,” arguing that it discouraged legacy holders from signing an agreement. ARIN’s response said it had changed the agreement: significant representations were removed, and the section was retitled “Acknowledged Rights To Included Number Resources.”

ARIN’s announcement said that the edit did not alter its position that number resources are not freely held property; it described them as a bundle of contractual rights created on issuance. The current version follows that rights-based vocabulary. An archived 2010 Legacy RSA, by contrast, contains a categorical “No Property Rights” clause. ARIN’s current RSA FAQ says organizations do not have to upgrade merely because a new version is published. The public record therefore establishes different contract formulations, but not how many organizations use each version.

That history makes the proposed destination more important, not less. The current contract is not simply the old disclaimer moved to another page. It recognizes an express bundle of rights. A reader cannot infer from the proposal’s rationale that every agreement contains identical language or that the proposed retirement would silently restore the older form.

Two different change paths are visible in the RSA

The posted RSA distinguishes changes to published policies from changes to the agreement itself. Section 1(d) says ARIN may modify policies, with notice and website publication, and that a policy change takes effect upon the earlier of notice or publication. Section 1(e) states a separate route for changing the agreement: a specified Board finding tied to a legal change, or Board recommendation and member ratification, followed by written notice at least 90 days before the change takes effect.

Those are the current document’s stated mechanisms. This article does not decide how they would apply to a future replacement for 6.4.1, whether a particular holder’s contract incorporates a specific clause, or what a court would conclude. It does show why “policy versus agreement” is a control choice as well as an editing choice. The documents describe different paths for changing their contents.

As of 13 October, ARIN still labels Draft Policy 2026-3 “Under Discussion.” ARIN’s meeting materials schedule it for discussion on 22 October. There is no adoption or implementation result to report. Until the community sees the version presented and any changes proposed in response, the narrow finding is that the draft names a destination in its rationale but has not supplied the text that would make the move reviewable.

Sources