More than a year ago, the company said it would "anonymize" its server logs after eighteen months. And sometime between March and July, it actually put this plan into action.

In this case, anonymize meant "change some of the bits in the IP address in the logs as well as change the cookie information."

But as CNet points out, if your cookie data remains intact, restoring the full IP address is trivial.

Google argues that users can always delete their cookies. "We have focused on IP addresses, because we recognize that users cannot control IP addresses in logs," the company says. "On the other hand, users can control their cookies.

"When a user clears cookies, s/he will effectively break any link between the cleared cookie and our raw IP logs once those logs hit the 9-month anonymization point. Moreover, we are still continuing to focus on ways to help users exert better controls over their cookies."

Controversial Silicon Valley advertising startup NebuAd drops plan to sell deep packet inspection technology to Internet service providers after Congress and public interest groups slam privacy implications of deep packet inspection. NebuAd suffered through a summer of losing customers and congressional hearing before bailing on the plan that promised ISPs additional revenue sources.

According to the report, NebuAd uses special equipment that "monitors, intercepts and modifies the contents of Internet packets" as consumers go online. The report found that NebuAd inserts extra hidden code into users' Web browsers that was not sent by the Web site being visited.

Comcast reportedly plans to reduce Internet service to customers it deems to be using too much bandwidth, a move that comes on the heels of federal regulators ruling that the Internet service provider violated the law by throttling BitTorrent transfers.

Comcast had said that its measures to slow BitTorrent transfers, which it voluntarily ended in March, were necessary to prevent its network from being overrun.

"Online records listing Chinese gymnasts and their ages that were posted on official Web sites in China, along with ages given in the official Chinese news media, however, seem to contradict the passport information, indicating that He (Kexin) and Jiang (Yuyuan) may be as young as 14--two years below the Olympic limit," stated the Times article.

This week security researcher "Stryde Hax" detailed his findings about discrepancies in the gymnasts' ages that he found via his own Internet searches.

Google had to turn over a 12TB database of every YouTube video ever watched-complete with user IDs and IP addresses.

On the official YouTube blog, the company said that it was "pleased to report that Viacom, MTV and other litigants have backed off their original demand for all users' viewing histories, and we will not be providing that information.... We remain committed to protecting your privacy and we'll continue to fight for your right to share and broadcast your work on YouTube."

"Great!" wrote one poster. "So when are you going to let us OPT OUT of info collection? You dodged a bullet today, but what happens the next time? What happens if the government decides to start spying on us thanks to your data collecting?"

Now comes a study noting that more experienced internet users tend to check their email less frequently than newer internet users. The folks behind the report suggest that experienced internet users have reached the point at which they don't want email controlling them any more -- but it makes you wonder if the real answer is that many are using other forms of communication instead of email, decreasing the importance of email.

Using a combination of legal threats and public shaming, Cuomo was able to get three ISPs to drop access to the entire alt.* hierarchy of Usenet, a move that encouraged California to request similar measures.

Cuomo's new web site signifies that he's clearly not done yet. It includes contact information for 20 ISPs that presumably operate in New York, and text of a letter to send to them to urge that they sign on to the campaign.

Regardless of how you feel about Cuomo's efforts or the implementation of his agreements by the ISPs, it's difficult to interpret the new site as anything more than an effort in self promotion.

The rapid shift of focus from an identifiable problem to a high-publicity campaign seems as likely to produce cynicism as it is to lead to progress on the underlying issue.

One of Japan's biggest Internet service providers will soon begin imposing daily upload limits on its customers in response to a portion of its user base who upload massive amounts of data.

OCN, the carrier operated by NTT Communications, will introduce a daily upload limit of 30G bytes from Aug. 1.

Downloads will continue to be unlimited.

An anti-spam outfit in the UK has compiled a list of the top five most spammed individuals in the UK. Three of them use Orange as their Internet Service Provider, and the most spammed man gets an average of 44,001 junk emails on a daily basis.

Come on, that is 1,338,363 pieces of spam every month or 16,060,365 junk email messages going to this one chap every year! This chap is clearly doing something wrong when it comes to safe surfing.

Wikipedia is used to its content being copied and mirrored. However, a new website at e-wikipedia.net appears to have taken this a step further by mirroring the entire English Wikipedia - articles, logos, disclaimers, userpages, and all.

If there's credit here, I don't see it - sure looks like it's intentionally misleading readers.