[163187] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Geoip lookup
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (John Curran)
Fri May 24 09:15:36 2013
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From: John Curran <jcurran@istaff.org>
In-Reply-To: <CDC4D53D.45146%andreas.larsen@ip-only.se>
Date: Fri, 24 May 2013 09:15:08 -0400
To: Andreas Larsen <andreas.larsen@ip-only.se>
Cc: North American Network Operators Group <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
On May 24, 2013, at 2:34 AM, Andreas Larsen <andreas.larsen@ip-only.se> =
wrote:
> If we continue to support and build tools around this geolocation =
based
> ip-dravel, we give people a false notion that this is something we =
should
> do.=20
> ...
>=20
> Or just get rid of the whole idea and realize that the internet is =
global
> and reaches everywhere no matter what your IP currently is.
While the Internet is global and reaches everywhere, the same is not=20
true about most businesses and governments... As a result, there are=20
many use cases that we may not like, but are seen as basic requirements=20=
by those organizations. Examples include laws and business contracts=20
that require different behavior depending on the location of the user,=20=
and from the view of these organizations, the Internet almost gives the
impression of shoddy workmanship to omit such an obvious capability. =20
Luckily, many organizations did come up with workarounds, and the lack=20=
of a 100% reliable solution did not prevent them from distributing=20
content (software, music, movies, articles, etc.) that they only had=20
rights to do so in a particular region.=20
If the approximate geolocation approaches had not been used, we'd
would not have had the region-restricted experimentation in content
distribution that underlies quite a bit of the industry even today.
One can argue that regionally-based business models should be changed,=20=
but the fact is that the not-quite-reliable geolocation services are
actually has been pretty important in enabling traditional content in
making it onto the Internet. (It is left as a exercise for the reader=20
as to whether more highly reliable geolocation would meaningfully help
the situation, or simply enable its use in non-commercial contexts to=20
the detriment of the global user community.)
/John
Disclaimer: My views alone (& for folks who wish to filter this email
based on my geolocation, it is presently Northern Virginia USA ;-)=
