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New Google APIs Know Where You Are

By Scott Gilbertson August 22, 2008 Categories: Platforms & APIs, Programming

google gearsGoogle is moving deeper into geo-aware waters with two new location-gathering API tools for developers. The company has expanded its Gears offline storage tool with a new Geolocation API and also beefed up its Ajax API to include an IP-to-geolocation discovery service. Both APIs are reminiscent of Yahoo’s FireEagle platform and signal a clear trend — tomorrow’s web will know where you are.

With more people using mobile devices to access online content, geo data offers tools for developers to build applications that can do things like show you nearby friends, pull up photos of your current location or direct you to a nearby store that stocks the item you’re after.

The Gears API methods will allow your favorite web apps to feed you location-specific info. Unfortunately, at the moment the new location API methods are limited to Windows mobile devices. But if you’d like to see the new Gears features in action, head over to the Google Mobile blog, which has some demos and links to live sites that use the new methods.

In the mean time, developers looking for a less device-specific solution will be happy to know that Google has added some geolocation methods to its Ajax API. The new methods allow you to look up a user’s location based on their IP address, which saves you from installing a IP-to-geo database.

You can see the new AJAX API in action by heading over to Google’s 2008 US Election gadget — the “News by State” will show local news for the state associated with the your IP.

Of course geolocation services raise some serious privacy concerns. Yahoo’s FireEagle does a pretty good job of making sure users are aware of what they’re getting into and Gears offers similar controls. Gears itself doesn’t store any location info, it simply allows other sites to do so. Naturally you should only allow web sites that you trust to access and store your location.

The Ajax API doesn’t require any input from the user, but like it or not, you’ve always been identifiable by IP address.

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