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Firefox -> geolocation and google

David Mulder [PersonRank 10]

Sunday, June 21, 2009
14 years ago2,774 views

Maybe this has been discussed before, I tried searching, but there didn't seemed anything on this matter. (Also check all posts on april 24, but nothing was there either)...

   So, the new firefox has implemented geolocation, after you have been asked it will provide your location to the site you are, the thing that shocked me was that they are using the google services for this, in other words, if this will be used a lot google will virtually know about anybody at all where they are if they visited any site which uses this feature. The 'weird' thing is that your ip is send along with the nearby wifi points when sending a geolocation request, whereas only the wifi points would be necesarry... any thoughts? Sure as always they are currently guaranteing they won't use it, but still...

The privacy document: http://www.google.com/privacy-lsf.html (April 24, 2009)

Bob [PersonRank 0]

14 years ago #

nope...if there are no wifi points nearby (or they are not in googles wifi database) you need the ip for geolocation

David Mulder [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

They could leave the ip location system to some smaller or different third party or do it themselves, these databases are available for free in hunderds of places... I have even used various of these systems, at the very least they should have created a standard in the interface where you can select which service to use for geolocation.

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