Web geolocation going mainstream
As increasing numbers of Web users connect to the Internet through mobile devices a new capability being built into browsers is the ability to locate users using their IP and wireless data. The W3C – the body governing web standards – has had a Geolocation API specification for a while now but until recently only a couple of experimental releases of the specification were available and mostly as third party plugins. But now geolocation is about to go mainstream.
Firefox 3.5, the latest release of the popular open source browser, now includes built-in support for Geolocation and Opera also has a build available for geolocation support. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 has experimental support, Chrome supports it through Gears while the iPhone’s Safari browser is rolling it out.
Accuracy
Web developers have long been able to estimate the location of visitors to their site using crude methods such as IP logging, which provides a general idea of where in the world a user is. With geolocation the potential to pinpoint users with accuracy is greatly increased, particularly for users that are using devices that are GPS-enabled or are connected through public WiFi points.
The idea behind geolocation is that a user’s position can be determined by analysing data about Wifi towers or GPS. Most modern mobile phones include GPS capabilities and laptops almost all include WiFi capabilities. In the case that a user doesn’t have either of these enabled, a rough estimate is provided based on the old-school IP address approach which can prove to be very inaccurate. Using GPS and WiFi, however, can be accurate down to just a few meters.
Benefits
The benefit of geolocation, for both users and developers, is that users can be served up relevant information based on their exact position. So, for example, a restaurant listing could include information on eating places within a certain range of the user. The same could be true of locating a motor service station in the near vicinity.
Other applications could include the ability to tag photos with their exact location when uploaded to an online service through a geolocation-capable browser.
Risks
The obvious fear for many web users is a privacy concern that the geolocation capabilities embedded in their browser could be used to secretly monitor their whereabouts. There has been much debate within the W3C over the past year over the exact privacy specifications that need to be put in place. The current specification makes it clear that browsers makers have to allow users to share their location data with third parties.
This means that users that visit a site, requesting their location data using a geolocation-capable browser such as Firefox 3.5, are asked explicitly whether they want to share the information. An example of this can be found on Mozilla’s demonstration page (http://en-us.www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/geolocation/#geo-demo).
Although Firefox 3.5 already includes built-in support for geolocation it is set by default to warn users of when a website wants to find their location.
Users can also permanently disable geolocation in Firefox if they never want to be found.
While Firefox 3.5 is the first of the mainstream browsers to include geolocation capabilities by default, all other makers have plans in place to roll this out in the coming few months.
Web Geolocation discussion
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