IP addresses help track users visits to websites and personal settings when available, but they all can be traced back to an identity. For that reason the E.U. privacy regulators want it classified at personal information, such as your date of birth and social security number. Their reasoning is that the IP address in most cases is used by the same person, and by knowing the IP, someone could get their exact identity from their ISP.
The focus of this push is for search engines in general to practice anonymous data collection. Google still holds your IP when you make searches for over a year (1.5 years), and cookies for its services for two years.
Search giants Google and Yahoo have been criticized in the past for not taking privacy more seriously. Their reasoning is that internet café users and people using proxies disambiguates their identity, thereby the IP address only defines a location.
Google has a huge stake in knowing your identity. The vast majority of Google’s revenue stems from its Adsense advertising dollars. They need to know who is abusing the system, which they track through IP. Some of their advertising and services are targeted to specific geographical locations, which would require IP identification.
With more internet based companies taking advantage of the leverage of users personal data, people need to become more aware of the net neutrality movement. Spain’s data protection regulator Artemi Rallo Lombarte best describes the situation, “[Their privacy policies] could very well be considered virtual or fictional…because search engines do not sufficiently emphasize their own privacy policies on their home pages, nor are they accessible to users [in layman’s terms].”
source doc: washingtonpost
