Not sure how big a deal this is, but Apple couldn't be more clearer as to who may subject iPhone users to geo-location-derived COMMERCIAL offers, and what it thinks of the latter [not].
http://devimages.apple.com/iphone/news/images/news_corelocation.png
Acc. to an "App Store Tip: Enhance Your App with Core Location" directed at iPhone OSX Cocoa Touch developers:

"The Core Location framework allows you to build applications which know where your users are and can deliver information based on their location, such as local weather, nearby restaurants, ATMs, and other location-based information.

If you build your application with features based on a user's location, make sure these features provide BENEFICIAL INFORMATION [emphasis mine]. If your app uses location-based information primarily to enable mobile advertisers to deliver targeted ads based on a user's location, your app will be returned to you by the App Store Review Team for modification before it can be posted to the App Store. [...]"

So, is there Good-bye Google in the works?
http://developer.apple.com/iphone/news/archives/2010/february/#corelocation

If I'm going to see ads on my phone either way, it would probably be more beneficial to me if the ads were based on my location...

Google is working on technology to estimate location without relying on geolocation information provided by the phone company or ISP.

http://blogoscoped.com/forum/166848.html

Assuming such "Doppler-effect" packet analysis DOES work for geo-detection purposes, what granular precision [in Western, cellular-dense setting] could we be talking about.... accurate to a radius of ...1000m? ...500m? ...100m?

"[...] a computer-implemented method of estimating the location of a wireless device is provided. The method comprises obtaining a packet of data transmitted from a first wireless device to a second wireless device; determining whether one of the first and second wireless devices is a wireless access point; determining the data rate of the transmitted data packet; if one of the first and second wireless devices is the wireless access point, then evaluating the determined data rate against a predetermined criterion; and assigning an estimated location to the wireless access point based upon the evaluation. [...]"