Mozilla Drops Axe on its Privacy-Friendly Location Service - OMG! Ubuntu
www.omgubuntu.co.uk
Mozilla has announced it is ending access to Mozilla Location Service (MLS), which provides accurate, privacy-respecting, and crowdsourced geolocation
    •  tal   ( @tal@lemmy.today ) English
      13•3 months ago

      I would say that it’s not hard to replace. I mean, all you need is an app that regularly dumps GPS data and a list of signal strengths from radios that broadcast unique IDs to start building out a database.

      What’s hard is doing one that is as complete and accurate as Google’s, because Google is hoovering up data from most cell phones about the location of a lot of devices.

      •  Creesch   ( @Creesch@beehaw.org ) 
        14•3 months ago

        You are glossing over a lot of infrastructure and development, when boiled down to the basics you are right. So it is basically a question of getting enough users to have that app installed. Which is not impossible given that we do have initiatives like OpenStreetMap.

      •  narc0tic_bird   ( @narc0tic_bird@lemm.ee ) 
        1•3 months ago

        The crowdsourcing part is what I meant. And you probably underestimate infrastructure as well.

        This also isn’t something you can just let a few volunteers do once and forget about it. It needs to be something that people run often on their phones. Wi-Fi access points change, cell towers sometimes change. You need to keep this data up-to-date. With Google’s or Apple’s location service, when a person buys a new router, it’s probably added to the database within hours or days at worst.

  •  Snarwin   ( @Snarwin@kbin.social ) 
    3•3 months ago

    Patent infringement claims in 2019 saw Mozilla reach a settlement to avoid litigation. As part of that settlement it was forced to make changes to MLS that impacted its ability to invest in (commercially exploit?) and improve the service.

    Yet another nice thing ruined by IP trolls. It’s long past time we threw software patents into the dustbin of history where they belong.