IP addresses, strings of numbers that identify computers on the
Internet, should generally be regarded as personal information,
the head of the European Union's group of data privacy
regulators said Monday. Peter Scharr, Germany's data protection
commissioner as well as head of the EU data privacy group, told
a European Parliament hearing that when an IP, or internet
protocol, address identifies an individual user, then it must be
considered personal data. Scharr's team has been commissioned to
report on Internet search engine providers such as Google,
Microsoft, and Yahoo, and examine how their Internet privacy
policies stack up against E.U. privacy law. Companies like
Google disagree with his conclusion because knowing the IP
address of a certain computer doesn't necessarily tell you who
is on that computer at any moment. A point Scharr concedes as
computers with Internet access at cafés, libraries, and offices
are examples of computers with multiple users per IP address.
However, "WHOIS" Web sites have pop