Privacy
A distinction can be made between co-operative and oppositional geolocation. In some cases, it is in the interest of users to be accurately located, for example, so that they can be offered information relevant to their location. In other cases, users prefer to not disclose their location for privacy or other reasons.
Technical measures for ensuring anonymity, such as proxy servers, can be used to circumvent restrictions imposed by geolocation software. Some sites detect the use of proxies and anonymizers, and may either block service or provide non-localized content in response.
In the UK, the application of the Data Protection Act means that geolocation will only yield the physical address of the ISP. Any further tracking (e.g. for criminal tracing) has to be carried out by getting the ISP to check their logs.
Read more about this topic: Geolocation Software
Famous quotes containing the word privacy:
“... privacy is ... connected to a politics of domination.”
—bell hooks (b. 1955)
“You may well ask how I expect to assert my privacy by resorting to the outrageous publicity of being one’s actual self on paper. There’s a possibility of it working if one chooses the terms, to wit: outshouting image-gimmick America through a quietly desperate search for self.”
—Kate Millett (b. 1934)
“Far from being the basis of the good society, the family, with its narrow privacy and tawdry secrets, is the source of all our discontents.”
—Sir Edmund Leach (20th century)