I’m building a system that maps a user’s IP to a physical location. This kind of stuff has been around for a while, and it’s so easy I don’t understand is why it’s used so infrequently. It’s as though it’s seen as a tool for the mega-corp ad networks like Yahoo and Google/DoubleClick, but there are free geo-IP databases available for everyone to use. SourceForge uses the free MaxMind GeoLite database and I’ve found it to be accurate enough to be useful.
It’s no secret that this is possible and there are projects available to make this process very easy, but I just don’t see it used very often. Why? Is there some sort of unspoken net neutrality rule that makes geotracking an IP an internet foux paux?
I hate having to type in my city state, zip, country, timezone, etc when registering for accounts online. The easier a company can make it for me the more likely I’ll do business with them. Back to work…
hostip.info offers a similar service through an HTTP API, though obviously with the risks of the reliability of their service uptime being poor, and the accuracy of the data being poor since it’s always changing; the benefit being virtually no maintenance.
I think the biggest issue preventing widespread uptake of IP geolocation is predictability. Most times, the location of a given IP address is going to be ISP’s CO, not the true endpoint. I would imagine that’s why most account registration forms don’t pre-fill data based on IP geolocation.
Left by Brett on May 9th, 2007