Computer Question: Public IP address

[dualstow]

I just reported an error at a website and one of the programmers asked me for my IP address, which you can find by googling, "What is my ip?"

Just out of curiosity what do they do with this info? I was a part-time mod at a forum where we used to block IP addresses when spammers kept changing names, but other than that, how would you use it to fix a problem?

[Xan]

Most likely, they're using it to go through their logs.  They might be able to use that to see exactly what happened to cause whatever problem you were reporting.

A public IP address is not really a secret; you necessarily send it to every site you visit.

[dualstow]

Makes sense, Xan, thank you!