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> As an innocuous example, have you ever noticed that Maps seems to show the right neighborhood when you connect a non-GPS laptop to a friend's wifi? Isn't tha
by nodja 8y ago
> As an innocuous example, have you ever noticed that Maps seems to show the right neighborhood when you connect a non-GPS laptop to a friend's wifi?
Isn't that just matching the IP to the correct town? Using a database like maxmind's.
- sjburt 8y agoGoogle also has a map of WiFi access points. By looking at which points are in range you can determine location.
- nitrogen 8y agoThere are databases with much higher accuracy. I once had a pizza delivery website I had never before used pre-populate the complete address for my location (on a desktop PC with no GPS). They don't do that anymore though, so I can't take a screenshot. Retailers buy and sell customer data as part of "data cleanup" efforts, that data can be correlated with geo-IP and third-party cookies, etc.