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> Why does Xerox need an entire A block, why do Apple, BMW?

They don't, but retroactively taking away their /8s would be extremely complicated and expensive for them, not to mention that there is very little benefit from prolonging exhaustion by perhaps 1-2 years at most.

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They could buy the ranges back if they really desired. The results from the Carna botnet show just how sparse the usage of the allocated ranges is. It's practically empty for the entire left upper quadrant.

http://internetcensus2012.bitbucket.org/images/hilbert_icmp_...

A lot of IP addresses are used but not visible from the public Internet.

Oh I realise, I just have a hard time believing that Ford even has a tiny portion of their block allocated to anything.

Ford has multiple design centres in different countries plus a lot of subcontractors who may need to connect to stuff from outside.

I can believe that they are using a large part of an /8.

And normal people and smaller companies need their addresses even more.

Then they can bid for them.

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