In Europe, IP will be considered as personal information.

Peter Scharr, head of the European Union’s working group on personal information protection, told Monday about a report being prepared for the European Parliament on the need to consider the computer’s IP address along with such information. On this basis, Peter analyzed how the largest search engines, such as Google, Yahoo and MSN, use data on a user's IP.

Microsoft's search engine has been approved by a European official. Unlike its main rival Google, it does not store IP in the query history. Google, although it gradually reduces the time it takes to store such data in its database, still does it, justifying itself that IP is not necessarily tied to any person or organization and, therefore, cannot by itself be considered as sensitive information. Not to mention the dozens of cases where attackers of all stripes are tracked by IP.

The discussion about the status of an IP address can stretch over hundreds of pages, but the very fact that it has already started at the high level in the EU speaks volumes. About completely ignoring technical problems in pursuit of vague legal values, for example.