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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."

6 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: 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.
  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. 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.