Germany Starts To Tighten IP Address Laws
Passing along IP addresses of web visitors to a third party without their permission could become illegal in Germany.
According to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, data protection authorities in Lower Saxony have already targeted sites who depend on IP addresses for online advertising.
The Lower Saxony authorities recently ordered German web marketer Matthias Reincke to remove Google’s AdSense and an Amazon widget that features books from the US online retailer.
Lower Saxony data protection commissioner Joachim Wahlbrink says users should give their permission before IP addresses of visitors can be passed on to advertisers such as Amazon. Informing web visitors that the information will be transmitted is not adequate. Data protection officials in other German states now seem to agree. (more…)