Buying dedicated IP addresses requires justification?!

[thisisit3]

Today I ordered another set of 5 dedicated IP addresses and I was told that I should first justify why or how I am going to use them.

Thats not really a problem for me since I need them for valid reasons (SSL certificates, payment gateway from our bank, etc).

Anyway, my question is, why do we need to justify our use?

What happens to some poor soul who just wants a dedicated IP address for his email server instead of using the common IP address, which can be blocked rather frequently by another hosted client?

I'm sure there must be a reason...

[JPC-Jim]

We require justification for all dedicated IP's according to ARIN rules. We get a lot of requests for IP's for SEO purposes, and this is not a valid reason. In case of the mail server, if that server has had issues with the shared IP being blacklisted, we would allow an IP in that situation.

[thisisit3]

Ah! I didn't know that such a scam existed. Thanks for the explanation!

[Gwaihir]

Anyway, my question is, why do we need to justify our use? [..]
I'm sure there must be a reason...

Because there aren't all that many available. The IPv4 address space is quite near its limits. ARIN wants to make sure they're not handed out too casually, like "I need two now, so why don't I get 20, just for future needs, as I do hope to grow my enterprise".