If you’re reading this within an hour after it was posted, you’ve got about 17 hours to comment on an important change being proposed at ARIN, the manager of Internet Protocol addresses for the North American region. ARIN is proposing a new “Policy Development Process.” (Sound familiar?) A step by step description of the proposal can be found here. The essence of the change is that the ARIN Advisory Council would manage and dispose of all policy proposals. The new PDP proposal is an example of the increasing formalization of IP address policy making. This trend, which is probably inevitable, will continue. Everyone interested in Internet governance needs to understand that and be attuned to the consequences. ARIN’s Advisory Council will become more of a gatekeeper for policy proposals.   more »