IP addresses don’t identify people

Thu,09 Jul 2009 11:00 GMT -4:00 http://www.p2pnet.net/story/24693

- A federal judge in Seattle has ruled IP addresses aren’t personal information.

Rather, an IP address, “identifies a computer,” US district court judge Richard Jones has decided.

His ruling followed a class-action lawsuit against Microsoft, “stemming from an update that automatically installed new anti-piracy software,” says Wendy Davis in Online Media Daily.

Consumers alleged Microsoft violated its user agreement by collecting IP addresses in the course of the updates, says the story, continuing:

“The consumers argued that Microsoft’s user agreement only allowed the company to collect information that does not personally identify users. Microsoft argued that IP addresses do not identify users because the addresses don’t include people’s names or addresses. The company also said that it did not combine IP addresses with other information that could link them to individuals.”

But, “Eric Goldman, director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University, points out that the European Union considers IP addresses to be personal information,” says Davis, going on »»»

Last year, the EU said that search engines should expunge users’ IP addresses as soon as possible.

Additionally, a court in New Jersey ruled last year that Internet service providers can’t disclose users’ IP addresses without a subpoena, on the theory that people expect their IP addresses will be kept private.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center’s Marc Rotenberg criticizes the Microsoft ruling as “a silly decision,” says Davis.

“The judge didn’t understand the significance of the IP address or the reason that it was collected,” says Online Media Daily.

Rotenberg adds  judge Jones, “prematurely dismissed the case, arguing that more facts were needed to determine whether IP addresses were personally identifiable”.

(Cheers, surfer)

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Online Media Daily - Court: IP Addresses Are Not ‘Personally Identifiable’ Information, July 6, 2009




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