Los Angeles - An Italian government body responsible for privacy protection has ruled that an anti-piracy firm breached the country's privacy laws when it gathered the IP addresses of Italians suspected of illegal file-sharing, according to reports. The Garante della Privacy said that an earlier ruling by an Italian magistrate authorizing Swiss anti-piracy firm Logistep to collect IP addresses of P2P users was incorrect.

In its ruling, the Italian privacy organization said that it is illegal to monitor P2P users without their permission, and ordered Logistep to delete data it has collected on Italian P2P users within two weeks, TorrentFreak reported.

Italian record labels were unhappy with the ruling.

"The whole issue of P2P needs to be addressed in Italy, but this particular decision is very strange," Enzo Mazza, president of the Federation of the Italian Music Industry (FIMI), told Billboard.

"As far as we're concerned, it's as if a person is apprehended for shop-lifting and the authorities, instead of investigating the thief, investigate the police officers who made the arrest."

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/221qm (Billboard)

http://snipurl.com/221qr (TorrentFreak)

http://www.fimi.it

http://www.logistepag.com/en