IP addresses (and the use of them)

[dick dastardly]

Just wondering if anyone here knows if there's any laws applied to the use of IP addresses?

I can tell who has been accessing my site and what they have been looking at through doing an IP check. Is there anything saying that I can't then get in contact with them?

I know that morally it's on dodgy ground but what does the law say (if anything) about tracking down visitors and trying to flog to them?

[simpo two]

dick dastardly said:

I know that morally it's on dodgy ground but what does the law say (if anything) about tracking down visitors and trying to flog to them?

You could just say you found their website. That's perfectly legal.

[_dobbo_]

I think the data protection act applies - ie be careful about what information you keep.

Saying that I forever get cold calls because my name is assigned as the technical contact for our IP address block so I can't see any difference with you calling people...

[trooper1212]

Well, if I had a wander round Tescos and then had a knock on the door at home from the Tescos manager a couple of days later, saying "I saw you in my store the other day and was wondering if I could interest you in these attractive offers" I'd tell him to piss right off

[dick dastardly]

Yep, I'd expect to be told to pi$$ off too!

It is a very complicated situation but as it's B2B, not B2C, and as it takes me ££££'s just to get visitors to the site I dont mind doing it (just so long as I wont be staring a conviction in the face doing so!)

[alunr]

Do you not have a privacy policy on the site?

[gopher]

It would be difficult to contact them directly however if you know their ip address you mayu be able to find their company\ISP and you could try contacting them.

Cheers

Paul

[alunr]

You could always look to see what areas people are using and get them to login to certain areas or you could offer an incentive to sign up.

you'll be amazed how poular a free mousemat or mug can be!

>> Edited by alunr on Wednesday 23 June 16:38

[JamieBeeston]

9/10 the IP will simply give you their ISP.

its very unlikely you can ever find a single person from an IP.

Given the info is public domain, I dont think you could be accused of anything illegal by tracing it back to their ISP... but this is useless to you as its not them.

the only way to trace back to THEM, is to have a mate at said ISP who can cross reference with their logs.

this WOULD be illegal.

so, ultimately, no its not illegal (imho) but its uselss to you unless it becomes illegal, which in turn makes it useless to you.

[dick dastardly]

alunr said:

Do you not have a privacy policy on the site?

No, do I need one?

JamieBeeston said:

9/10 the IP will simply give you their ISP. its very unlikely you can ever find a single person from an IP...

Most of the businesses I deal with are quite large and so have their own servers. Of about 20 IP checks I did yesterday about 12 were ISPs but 8 showed the company the IP address belonged to. This still equates to an average of a good 10-20 potential customers a day.

I know roughly which person in each company would be after our software (very specialist) so it isn't too much a problem contacting them once i know which companies are in the marketplace.

[dans]

dick dastardly said:

alunr said: Do you not have a privacy policy on the site? No, do I need one? JamieBeeston said: 9/10 the IP will simply give you their ISP. its very unlikely you can ever find a single person from an IP... Most of the businesses I deal with are quite large and so have their own servers. Of about 20 IP checks I did yesterday about 12 were ISPs but 8 showed the company the IP address belonged to. This still equates to an average of a good 10-20 potential customers a day. I know roughly which person in each company would be after our software (very specialist) so it isn't too much a problem contacting them once i know which companies are in the marketplace.

On that basis I'd call them up - but perhaps don't mention what made you call.... nobody likes being spied on as it were..you could easily run a script on your site which does a reverse lookup an all visitors and dumps the output put into a text file, then you have a daily hit list all done for you...