
IP Address Geolocation Javascript API : JSON Response - theone
http://www.nitinh.com/2009/04/ip-address-geolocation-javascript-api-json/
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axod
Well, it gets my _country_ correctly :)

Wonder how it fares in different countries (For me, it shows me as London, UK
whereas I'm actually a hundred or so miles outside London).

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CalmQuiet
Well, it's going to give location of your IP, not your body (or even your
CPU). I, for example, am in the middle of a cow paddy. But correctly offers
the name of the _town_ where my IP is based (not the _city_ to which _my body_
is geographically closer). Such are the relativities of "locating" a person
according to IP.

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nikesh
this is what the name suggest "IP Address Geolocation"

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nikesh
doesn't even show location of microsoft.com IP correctly

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sanjayparekh
Quick comment but a disclaimer first - I have a prejudice on this subject
since I founded Digital Envoy which was the first IP geotargeting company. I
no longer work there and the company was acquired back in 2007.

In general services that are on the cheaper end or free end of the spectrum
rely heavily on whois data parsing and analysis. This is a highly inaccurate
method of targeting. Companies that are specifically seeking to provide high
quality and highly accurate data, like Digital Envoy, do a lot more analysis
than just parsing public information. That said, the service is a lot more
expensive than these cheap/free service. In the end, you get what you pay for.
A lot of people start on these services and then graduate to more expensive
services as their needs for accuracy increase.

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yourock
May be you are correct, but I am pretty sure that in this opensource world
soon there will be a good free option available

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unknwn
ya you(yourock) are 100% correct, even same way i believe ...in upcoming days
we will surly get a better free option.

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sanjayparekh
Honestly, it doesn't really matter to me since I've already had my exit from
my company but unfortunately I don't think this is true. Given how much data
collection and analysis has to go into good IP geotargeting technology, this
really is something that a for-profit company has to do. Otherwise at some
point in the last 10 years that Digital Envoy has been around, the company
would have been crushed by an open source or cheaper alternative. That isn't
true and this is the main reason why, IMHO.

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DenisM
I imagine skyhook should have enormous leverage here. They business is
normally the opposite, but it's foolish for them not to use their databases in
the reverse. Same applies to large skyhok users such as Google and Apple, as
they should have access to all of the same data.

Next, there is Amazon - they know where you live and they know your IP
address. _Everybody_ shops at Amazon.

Now, I can't think of an open & free way to collect exact information yet...
ideas?

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sanjayparekh
Good ideas but there are issues with this approach. But to explain them here
would probably cause me to run out of characters and bore 99% of HN readers.
But you're absolutely right that some of these sources could help augment the
accuracy of any IP geotargeting system. Unfortunately this type of data has
been hard to get a hold of because of either privacy policy issues or some
strange beliefe that this was proprietary/trade secret information.

Trust me, I've tried this in the past and came up empty most of the time. That
said, it is a really good idea.

