The accuracy of sophisticated geo-location technologies
The accuracy of sophisticated geo-location technologies is difficult to gauge. While the providers indicate the potential accuracy to be very high, “over 99% at a country level and approximately 92% at a city-level” (Digital Envoy product sheet), it should be remembered that they are after all trying to sell a product, and these impressive figures have been criticised. (e.g. Information Technology Association of America, ECommerce Taxation and the Limitations of Geolocation Tools) There is a range of factors affecting the accuracy of geo-location technologies. Due to the dual nature of the geo-location process, these factors can be divided into two categories: ‘source problems’ and ‘circumvention problems’.
The source problems are the problems associated with building up and/or collecting accurate geo-location data. In relation to IP addresses, there is no real equivalent to the address registers listing physical addresses, or the phone registers listing phone numbers, at least not currently. Consequently the ones creating databases of geo-location information must rely on other, less straightforward, methods. Obviously, the accuracy of the material in the geo-location databases depend on, and can never be better than, the accuracy of the collection of that data. Common methods of collecting relevant material include, for example, gathering data from registration databases, network routing information, DNS systems, host name translations, ISP information and Web content. All of these sources may provide inaccurate information.
Turning to circumvention problems, it can be noted that, while some circumvention techniques are technologically advanced (e.g. deep linking to streaming video content without accessing the HTTP server), others are easy enough to be used by virtually anyone (e.g. anonymising techniques) or even inherent in the system-structure (“tunnelling methods”). With this in mind, it will presumably always be possible to circumvent geo-location technologies. Having said that, it should also be noted that for most uses, these technologies do not need to be hundred percent accurate and it consequently does not always matter that they can be circumvented by a limited group of people motivated to do so. Furthermore, the accuracy is high enough to interest website operators to use geo-location technologies, and high enough for the courts to start taking notice of geo-location technologies.
For more information, see: Svantesson, D. J. B. (2008). How does the accuracy of geo-location technologies affect the law? Masaryk University journal of law and technology, 2(1), 11-21.