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Firefox Add-On To Track Your Location Via Wi-Fi
Barence writes "Mozilla Labs has unveiled a new Add-on that allows Firefox to pinpoint your location based on Wi-Fi signals. The feature, called Geode, is a prototype for the location-tracking technology that will be built into the forthcoming Firefox 3.1. Geode is designed to work with websites that rely on knowing your location, such as mapping and geotagging services. The prospect of Firefox having the ability to track your location raises obvious privacy fears. Mozilla insists users will remain in complete control. 'With Geode, when a website requests your location a notification bar will ask how much information you want to give that site: your exact location, your neighbourhood, your city, or nothing at all,' the Mozilla Labs blog claims."
I'd much rather this remain a separately downloadable add-on.
It is designed so that every application has to get the agreement from the user first. He/She may choose to permit access to the accurate or approximate coordinates (or to deny access).
Source: heise.de (german)
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
They sent vehicles out with Wi-fi scanners to catalog broadcast MAC addresses and then map those wireless devices via their GPS location. All that data is then funneled into a database so the position of the Wireless device can be easily "looked up." The downside is that wireless devices are not static and can be easily moved or turned off. So the database must be constantly updated.
If you'd bother reading to the second sentence: " The feature, called Geode, is a prototype for the location-tracking technology that will be built into the forthcoming Firefox 3.1."
You can't not install it, it's already installed.
Other than that, you seem to be traveling.... you get the point