IP numbers are arguably public resources. These public resources are “assigned” by RIR to individuals and corporations. These assignees may use assigned resources for their own (benefit and theoretical) exclusive use on the public network.
IPv4 resources have become more scarce and eventually will probably lead to the Internet eventually moving over to IPv6, it has also led to the sale and purchase of assigned resources between individuals and corporations. (What was received freely is now bought and sold and the nature of the Internet has changed from co-operative, open and free TO money, money and money)
For the medium term future though, EMAIL and WEB servers wishing to relay electronic mail, will probably remain on IPv4 and it is important to manage reputation of IPv4 resources.
IP Numbers are sometimes purchased by scammers, spammers and other criminals. The resources then cause a lot of damage and destruction on the Internet and eventually cannot be used as server resources. The same resources are then purchased by a new party and this new party cannot understand why these resources cannot just simply be ‘cleaned’ and immediately used by the new party.
People simply do not care and they simply refuse to accept responsibility at all, no social responsibility, no consequences. Demands, threats and an air of entitlement: They paid to buy an IP number and now they demand to be able to use it or they will sue, they will destroy and they will dominate.
Practically however, IP resources have reputations and whether they are in use by individual X or Corporation Y makes no difference.If you have just been assigned these resources or you have just received an IP number from an “ISP” – it matters not. All that matters is the total and historic reputation of the resource, the resource ranges, and the assignee. If IP resources have cause abuse and general mayhem and criminality on the public network some of these resources will be very expensive and cost a lot of time and effort to “clean” as these resources may be tainted. (They may also be simultaneously listed on hundreds of independent ‘blacklists’). Some IPV4 assignees do not ethically manage abuse complaints. Some are constantly and recurringly abusing others on the public network, others constantly mix abuse, spam, scams with real commercial emails. Then there are also large multinational corporations that cut down spending on abuse management to balance their estimation of what they wrongly believe their deliverability will carry. Either way: The listing of each public resource on our public blacklists are there for a reason, our many millions of listings simply contain zero errors.
Blacklist Pro Tip: Careful when you request removal from any blacklist as this will trigger an investigation into your IP resource. If your IP resource has many other RBL listings your resource score may be adjusted upwards. This could result in additional listings instead of resulting in removal.
With the advent of resource scoring, (where an ipv4 resource relaying email and carrying web and other traffic, has a calculated “score”) Internet abuse has been much reduced and more cheaply managed.