[whatwg] Geolocation in the browser

[Ryan Sarver]

One of the other options we have is to reverse-geocode the lat/lon and
then return different levels of granularity based on that information

42.351036, -71.049378 = 332 Congress St, Boston, MA 02210

So sites like fandango that would only require a zipcode, we would only
need to provide them a zipcode.

The biggest problem with this implementation is that it requires an
additional service on top of standard GPS. We have it built into our
service, but adding it on top of GPS becomes a hurdle. We have also
found that most users don't actually worry too much about the
specificity of the location depending on the use-case. Most of the time
they are more worried about the binary allow/deny of their location.

I think it makes sense as a first revision to just piggyback on NMEA and
just do a straight pass through of that information, with some possibly
fuzzying logic within the browser.


-----Original Message-----
From: Gervase Markham [mailto:gerv at mozilla.org] 
Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2007 5:53 AM
To: Ryan Sarver
Cc: Henri Sivonen; whatwg at lists.whatwg.org
Subject: Re: [whatwg] Geolocation in the browser

Ryan Sarver wrote:
> There are obvious privacy concerns -- I feel they can be alleviated
with
> the proper level of control for the user. Currently in our prototypes,
> the browser prompts the user for each request, which they can allow or
> deny and then remember that preference for subsequent requests from
that
> domain. What type of privacy control are you envisioning?

I actually think it's easier to design a UI for this than many other 
things we might ask the user about. Explaining the impact of setting a 
cookie is rather hard. However, one example of the UI could be:

The website skyhookwireless.com wants to know where you are.

Firefox thinks you are [ Home: XX Heene Road, Enfield, London |V]

Tell skyhookwireless.com:

(o) Nothing
( ) To the nearest kilometre
( ) To the nearest 100m
( ) As precisely as possible

[ OK ]

Gerv