One of the most critical components to ensuring your privacy and security when you are online is the ability to mask your IP address. What many people don’t realize is that your IP address tells others so much about you when you are online, and it is so easy to prevent this. In particular, your IP address lets websites know your general location, often with surprising accuracy. There are other, less important components that the IP address also reveals, such as the operating system that your computer is running or the type of web browser you are using.
In fact, this is only one aspect of your IP address, ad really it isn’t even the most important one. For the most part, you have a static IP address, which means that it is the same every time you use the internet. This provides the potential for your activities to be monitored, and this is actually something that is done by a number of online companies.
Google is notorious for this, and has made no secret of the fact that it records information about the users browsing along with their IP address. The information that Google, and other companies, gather by recording your IP address and activity is substantial, especially when you consider the sheer number of searches that Google powers.
Regulators in Europe have argued that the recording of IP addresses should be considered personally identifiable information, and as a consequence, they should be under stricter privacy laws than they are currently. Not surprisingly, Google has disagreed with this analysis, arguing that you cannot work out who a person is on their IP address alone, you also need other information.
While it is true that IP addresses do not provide information about who is using the computer, lawmakers often do not care. In some parts of the world, you are considered to be responsible for any activity that occurs on your IP address, regardless of whether it actually had anything to do with you or not.
Even laws in developed countries are beginning to move this way. There have been indications that people will need to prove that they did not prove the activity that has been associated with their IP address, rather than the other way around. This means that it is important to mask your IP address to make sure that no one has the ability to track your activity, and that you are protected.