28 February—An Internet Protocol address—commonly referred to as an IP address—is a unique numerical label assigned by an internet service provider (ISP) to every device connected to the internet. You can’t get on the internet without one. Without getting technical (because it’s far beyond the comprehension of The Monitor’s computer nerd), the 32-bit IPv4 protocol comprises 4,294,967,296 (that’s over four billion) addresses. But everyone knows there are currently something over 16 billion devices connected to the internet—most of them serving no useful purpose, to be sure. So now there’s also the 128-bit IPv6 protocol (to get us through another decade if we’re lucky) that allows for 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 addresses.

That’s over 340 undecillion addresses for Americans but only 340 sextillion addresses for older Brits. Undecillion is from the Latin for eleven, sextillion is from the Latin for six. (People who avoid sex prefer the Greek-derived hexillion.) The number with 36 zero places—10³⁶—is the same but the confusing nomenclature comes from the old days when an American billion—according to what’s now known as the short scale—was only a thousand million while a British billion—under what’s now known as the long scale—was a million million. Under the long scale, a British undecillion would have 66 zero places—10⁶⁶.

Most of the English-speaking world uses the short scale today, while areas that haven’t adopted God’s second favorite language or joined the superscript-power-reducing club stick with the long scale. The 51^st state has it both ways, as English-speaking parts of Canada use the short scale while French-speaking parts insist on the long scale. Red China and Taiwan use the long scale. Russia, surprisingly, uses the short scale.

The dichotomy in -illion nomenclature isn’t as big a problem as it may appear, though, since for really big numbers the common practice is to express them as superscriptural powers of ten. And in all events the short scale is considered to be the default.

Back to IP addresses, then, they’re essentially online addresses that allow computers and other devices to communicate with one another like street addresses or PO box numbers facilitate the delivery of mail from one party to another (when the USPS doesn’t screw up), for instance.

And just as postal addresses are used illegally by lenders to discriminate when they fiddle loan interest rates, IP addresses are used by internet vendors to fiddle prices. The latest fiddle to be exposed involves hotel internet prices. If you book a room online at whatever hotel from an IP address associated with an affluent region, for instance, you may be charged more than if you book the same room from a less affluent IP address.

It may not be nice, but it’s perfectly legal. And it’s no different from, say, Stop & Shop selling a product for a higher price in Litchfield or Greenwich than in Torrington or Waterbury. After all, charging what the market will bear is what capitalism is all about . . .