Why geolocation by IP sucks

June 11th, 2007, 10:57.

It seems to me that a gem from the past is becoming ubiquitous again. The technology I’m talking about is geolocation by the client’s IP address.

Gizmodo and Google, for instance, are some of the sites using IP based geolocation to redirect their visitors to sites in local languages and targeted at a specific geographic locale. Banner/marketing companies seem to be making more and more use of this technology to either show ads related to the specify country of origin, or ingeniously to dynamically create one of those “Lonely girls from (insert name of your city) want to meet you” ads.

It is my opinion that this is pure crap.

Due to my professional obligations, I travel worldwide. While visiting English speaking countries I have no problems. The problems arise when I get into a country which uses a language I don’t speak. For instance, I’ve been working intermittently in Germany for the last couple of months. Every time I try to load Gizmodo from there, I’m greeted by a localized page instead of the default one. Why?

I’m not sure what the reasons are. It could be that the site is trying to be helpful. They are trying to show me that they know I “speak” German, so they are making things easier for me by showing me a localized version of their site. The second possibility is that the IP address is readily available, so why not use it - it’s a nifty gadget in and of itself. Banner providers follow a different logic; not so much trying to be helpful as to present the visitors with relevant ads which are more likely to cause a click-through.

The problem with this logic is that the sites assume that my IP address and it’s estimated geographical position is both correct factually and has a meaning related to who the end user is.

Where are you actually?

Why would the location be incorrect? IP geolocation is based on additional information stored in proprietary databases used by each provider offering the geolocation service. Often these databases are not finely grained, instead relying on the crudely assigned info from regional Internet registries or by performing investigations of their own. This can cause small blocks within larger blocks to be incorrectly assigned to countries owning the larger block, an effect often seen on IP ranges shared by international ISPs.

The second reason for failed geolocation comes from users who access Internet from corporate or international networks with limited number of proxy servers forwarding data from internal networks onto the Internet. For instance, my company has two proxy termination points where HTTP traffic passes beyond the edge of our internal network: one in Asia and one in Austria. If I try to access sites like Gizmodo or SourceForge from within the corporate network, the sites believe that I should be shown the localized version.

Is your location important?

Why would the location information, even if geographically correct, not be noteworthy?

As a frequent traveller, I never know where I’m going to end up next. It might be Bangkok or it might be Munich. However, the fact that I’m currently in Munich won’t change the fact that I’m not interested in loans for Germans, nor am I interested in job openings in the city of Bangkok. With the huge penetration of freely available WiFi access points and 3G mobile Internet access, the user’s physical location simply should not matter any more.

So, what can we do?

I can clearly identify only two reasons for sites to use geolocation: automagic site localization and content tuning, and both seem to be easily solvable with other methods.

The HTTP protocol already has support for acceptable languages which are acceptable to the user. It’s called the Accept-Language header. If my language is set to English, then by the Thor’s mighty hammer, I don’t want to see anything except that language, unless the server doesn’t have the version in that language. In that case, I want a list of possible languages and a prompt to chose one of them.

Also, when I make a choice about the language, I want that choice to be saved on my computer as a cookie. That’s what cookies are for - saving my settings. They are not here to help CIA/FBI/NSA track you, I’m sure they have better ways to do it.

Finally, I’d even be willing to accept cookies from banner providers to specify what kind of ads are relevant and acceptable to me, if that would put an end to the damn Thai massage parlor pop-ups. They are unpleasant.

Technorati Tags: geolocation, ip geolocation, geography, google, gizmodo, cookies, services, 3g, wifi

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2 responses to "Why geolocation by IP sucks"

Coming from a well-established company in this space, I must disagree with your assessment of IP geolocation. When you visit a site like Gizmodo that is redirecting you based on IP address, they are using free or low cost services that only take into account the country you are visiting from. They are assuming that since you are currently in Germany (based on IP) that you must be German-speaking. They are also not evaluating the nature of your connection to see if it makes sense to display a generic English page if you are connecting through a corporate proxy.

I agree it makes more sense to base a news sites’ redirect on a combination of IP address and browser language, but take a minute to think about other applications where content localization plays, such as e-commerce. Companies localize the content of an e-commerce site because chances are you want to see inventory or offers that are only available in your country. Why see summer clothing on a site if you are located in the other hemisphere and your local stores are currently only stocking ski jackets? If you are in Berlin and are on a travel site, why wouldn’t you want to see deals on flights leaving Germany? Why go all the way to the order form page on a movie rental site only to find that license restrictions prevent you from downloading?

Advertisers are using geolocation more and more because it helps their customer’s bottom line. If you can give your customer a higher click-through rating by making sure they are only getting traffic relevant to places they do business, they will come back to you. On the flip-side, the customer sees content that relates to their location, such as the examples above, which makes them more likely to click-through and conduct business on your site.

Your comment: “With the huge penetration of freely available WiFi access points and 3G mobile Internet access, the user’s physical location simply should not matter any more” is missing the fact that Google, Yahoo, navigation companies and mobile providers are all investing heavily in location based services because they see otherwise.

Regarding your final comment stating that you can only think of two uses for sites to use geolocation, there are a few applications missing: blocking access from countries where it is illegal for them to do business, such as restrictions for Internet gambling and OFAC compliance. Then there’s Internet fraud, an issue that creates headaches for companies because the cost of manual review is so high. Many e-commerce sites automate this by comparing your IP address location to your credit card billing address. A mismatch here is usually cause for escalation to a real person. Oh and if they are attempting to hide their true IP address? We can detect that too.

In the end, the usefulness of geolocation goes way beyond placing relevant content on the page for their visitors to view, most of which you cannot see

Hi Josh!

I think you are wrong in two points. If I want targetted products, I can easily visit local shops rather than buying online. I go online because of the diversity of the products offered.

Another side of the dime is that no matter how good the stuff Quova sells is, it’s still imperfect by nature because IP is not, and never was intended to be used to assign geographic information.

As long as there are two people on the Internet willing to provide “cover” for each other, you will never be able to pinpoint neither of their’s location. And there are more than two people willing to cooperate in this way.

I’d love it if you could comment some more on what makes Quova’s offerings so great!

Sincerely,
Ivan

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