# "Your IP address has been recorded to prevent fraud"

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ip-address-has-been-recorded-to-prevent-fraud/781817>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 9, 2017, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ip-address-has-been-recorded-to-prevent-fraud/781817 "2017-03-09T23:42:42Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 2

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\
**Post date:** [March 13, 2017, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ip-address-has-been-recorded-to-prevent-fraud/781817/22 "2017-03-13T21:46:36Z")

</div>

> [@Atamasama](#):
>
> A guaranteed static public IP address is something you need to pay for regardless of what kind of service you have. That has been true for a long time, even before the wide availability of broadband internet for consumers.

The key word is “guaranteed”. I go years with the same IP address. But I have no guarantee that it won’t change tomorrow.

The ISP can log which _customer_ has which IP address and when. So if there’s an issue (copyright lawyers, police, etc.) the customer can be tracked down. Having long term static IP addresses makes all this much tidier. You can’t easily claim that you didn’t have that IP address for that day if the ISP logs said you had it for the last 3 years.

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ip-address-has-been-recorded-to-prevent-fraud/781817.md?page=1)