Don't want to sound creepy or anything, but what information, if any, can you gain by having someone's IP address? After checking my statcounter stats, I'm just curious to know if I can find out exactly who's viewing my site. Anybody know?

Bentley

Not really... well, it can be done, but not by you .

The ISP would have to give up who that IP address belongs too and they won't do that without a court order.

I think unless you have access to an ISP's database then you couldn't find out exactly who is looking at your site. I think IP addresses are circulated, because my IP address changes periodically. I think the best you can get is city and town (even though statcounter sucks at doing that if you're using a big ISP, I have sbc and it lists as Dallas even though I'm in KC).

usually I can tell what city it's from, and what ISP it's using, sometimes it will show what company it's from if it's from a business line, but it won't tell you anyones name (at least it hasn't for me yet)

Yeah, but even telling what city it is from is not always possible. For example. The last IP to hit my blog was 205.188.117.13 which is cache-dtc-ae09.proxy.aol.com. Well, AOL's backbone is located in Ashburn, VA (listed on INTERNIC as Sterling) but does that really mean that the person that accessed my blog is sitting in Ashburn, VA? Probably not.

Here's another:

151.188.0.230 is eclipse1-out.fcps.k12.va.us which is Fairfax County (VA) Public Schools. This particular office is located in Alexandria, VA. But, I know that Fairfax County is a very large county. This person can be anywhere.

So, unless I have direct access to the access provider's database (via subpoena, or of I sweet talk someone!) there is no way to find out exactly who visited your web page.

http://www.ip-adress.com/