E.U. says IP addresses are personal data

In a decision likely to impact the technology world in the United States, the European Union said this week that IP addresses should be considered personal information. The conclusion was made by the E.U.'s group of data privacy regulators which is working on a report about how well privacy policies of Internet search engines operated by Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and others comply with E.U. privacy law. That may help settle a debate in the United States where there are mixed opinions on the subject--or it could simply ignite more controversy.

Germany's data-protection commissioner, Peter Scharr, who leads the E.U. data privacy group, testified at a hearing on online data protection that an Internet protocol address "has to be regarded as personal data." That may rile up Google, which argues that an IP address identifies the location of a computer, not an individual user. Others in the U.S. have a different view. "The more the companies know about you, the more commercial value is obtained," said Marc Rotenberg, a privacy advocate at the nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C.

To read more about who owns an IP address:
- See this Washington Post article