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Google Deducing Wireless Location Data

Posted by timothy on from the peekaboo-the-van-sees-you dept.

bizwriter writes "When it comes to knowing where wireless users are, the carriers have had a lock on the data. But a patent application shows that Google is trying to deduce the information based on packet headers and estimated transmission rates. This would let it walk right around carriers and become another source of location data to advertisers."

11 of 90 comments (clear)

  1. Amazing Google by TechForensics · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You gotta admire Google. They are so endlessly, avidly proliferating themselves. If they ever turn evil we could be in a lot of trouble.

    --
    Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
    1. Re:Amazing Google by wizardforce · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If they ever turn evil we could be in a lot of trouble.

      If?

      --
      Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
    2. Re:Amazing Google by Profane+MuthaFucka · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I hope they figure it out, because ATT somehow keeps my new Samsung phone from running Google maps properly. It can't figure out where it is at all. Makes it useless.

      I don't want to pay the fuckers "by the drink" for a GPS service. And I want to strangle the marketer that invented that idiotic bit of buzzword bingo too.

      --
      Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
    3. Re:Amazing Google by wizardforce · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It was just an example, the first one I could find. Google has been cooperating with the Chinese govt. in terms of censoring their results since 2006. Google only very recently showed their unwillingness to continue censoring their results after the infamous hack on Google's operations. There isn't any evidence that Google did this for anything other than selfish reasons.

      --
      Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
    4. Re:Amazing Google by wizardforce · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Google has a legal duty to do not what is morally right, but what is in their shareholder's interest

      I *know* that I'm going to be burning some karma here but to me, "the shareholders made them do it" isn't an excuse for violating human rights.

      Google figured that now would be their best time to speak out against it and have the maximum impact.

      They were just hacked and at the time, it was believed to be the work of Chinese hackers. This I suspect had a lot to do with why Google threatened to pull out of China and stop cooperating with the Chinese govt. In any case, I believe that my original point still stands; Google may have not broken any laws by participating in censorship in China but that does not mean they aren't evil. Willingly abiding by evil laws is evil in of its self.

      --
      Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
    5. Re:Amazing Google by phantomfive · · Score: 3, Informative
      Wow, that is the densest post I have seen in a long time. Companies ignore the interest of shareholders all the time. Apple, for example, would be paying dividends if it really cared about its shareholders. They have the cash, and a lot of shareholders really want it.

      The legal requirements towards shareholders is really weak. About the only thing you can't do is deceive the shareholders about what you are planning.

      Completely ignoring a billion people is not what shareholders want.

      That's really bold of you to speak for all those people you don't know. In fact, in this case we know that the significant portion of Google shareholders actually do want Google to stop censoring search results in China.

      Companies are run by people. They aren't faceless borgs; the problem is you don't know the faces of the people running the companies, so it's easy for you to imagine they are evil. In reality they are no more evil than the people running them.

      --
      Qxe4
  2. Carriers can mess with this? by KenMcM · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What's stopping carriers from deliberately slowing transmission rates for random customers during random intervals? Just enough such that Google's data is inaccurate.

    1. Re:Carriers can mess with this? by Moridin42 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Carriers need to do something deliberate to randomly slow transmission rates for random customers? I would like to know which carrier this is. Are they located in the US?

      --
      I don't expect morality, equality, consistency, or justice from the law. I expect only legality.
  3. Eh? by PCM2 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If the carriers are "jealously guarding" their location data, how come every time I pull up Google Maps on my non-GPS BlackBerry it can figure out where I am to within a block or so? Either this patent is for a technology Google had figured out a long time ago, or else the carriers aren't as worried about having "a lock" on this data as TFA makes it sound.

    --
    Breakfast served all day!
  4. answered your own question by SuperBanana · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Either this patent is for a technology Google had figured out a long time ago

    Ding ding ding. Google's been using the technology for a while; they just filed for the application.

    You don't have to file for a patent the second you invent something. In fact, you usually want to wait as long as possible before the final steps. You get your foot in the door by filing some paperwork with the patent attorney, notarizing documents showing the invention, etc. etc.

    --
    Please help metamoderate.
  5. The real reason for Google's DNS change suggestion by GrantRobertson · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Now we know the real reason for the suggestion Google has made recently to change the way DNS works to report part of the requesting IP address. They don't give one whit about decreasing unnecessary traffic. They just want to use that for additional location data.