On Line Media
Wendy Davis,Tuesday, July 7, 2009
In a ruling that could fuel debate about online privacy, a federal judge in Seattle has held that IP addresses are not personal information.
“In order for ‘personally identifiable information’ to be personally identifiable, it must identify a person. But an IP address identifies a computer,” U.S. District Court Judge Richard Jones said in a written decision.
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. Last year, the EU said that search engines should expunge users’ IP addresses as soon as possible.
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