You are right. IPs are public domain when Google wants to harvest them, and private data when they are being sued. Double standard. - Phil Glockner
Not quite. Google has been consistent that IP addresses, "without more", can't be used to identify someone. Viacom wanted, and the judge has granted, additional information that can be used in conjunction with IP addresses to identify individual users. - mrshl
@mrshl And Google is only storing our IP addresses? Only using just that identifier for ad serving? More like they tried on a sheep costume for a day. - Cyndy
again, google collects much more information. because we give it to them. this case was about what can be collected from google. if armchair lawyers think they know how it works, and can blog about it in a few paragraphs, be my guest. - mrshl
mrshl, and I'm arguing that Google argues with the EU that things AREN'T private when they want to collect them, but then tells the US Courts that they ARE private when they don't want to share them. They can't play it both ways. - Cyndy
and i'm saying that google's job is always to defend its data, and consequently its users. let me know if you don't want them spending THEIR money in defending YOUR data. that's what they're doing. incidentally, most sophisticated sites log IP addresses for some amount of time. and most sites also have user IDs and search logs. all of them would take the stand google is taking here. - mrshl
and again, i take issue with the idea that google's having it both ways. they oppose any effort by viacom to get both IP addresses and the data that can be used to make such information identifiable. it's one thing to defend your ability to collect user information. quite another to defend against another site's discovery request for that same information. we gave that info to google, not viacom. - mrshl
