Livejournal wants to know what you think

[andrewducker]

LJ has allowed people to log the IP address of commenters since, well, forever.

Today they added a bit of functionality that automatically turned that into a Country/City. Using a simple DNS lookup. Which is trivial to do, and has also been available for free online since, well, forever.

Cue wailing and gnashing of teeth, and them switching it back off.

And then asking whether people think that they should be providing IP addresses at all.

If you have an opinion (or just like clicking on options in polls) then go here and do so.

Comments

[matgb]

I have just commented there, turning on then off geolocation was daft and annoying, I thought it a good feature but not one that was going to fit on English language LJ.

But to even propose removing IP logging, the only feature they've given that helps deal with problematic comments and similar? Gah!

On any other blog platform you can track the IP address of all your visitors fairly easily, anyone that self hosts can do it even more easily. People that think they can be totalling anonymous online a clue stick or three.

[dreema.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing that if they stopped providing ip info of posters, and you really _really_ wanted to know who was looking at your posts, there'd be nothing stopping you sticking a tiny image up some on your page that was linked back to somewhere that does provide ip logging.

Personally i have no problem with my ip being known to the owners of journals that i comment in.

[andrewducker]

Yup - that's exactly the service that ljtoys provides. And very handy it has been, on a few occasions!

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Ah, I wondered about that. I didn't think LJ were displaying any information that you couldn't find out from an IP address anyway.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Dear God, the moron brigade.

[andrewducker]

*like*