IP2Location

Infobox Dotcom company
company_name = IP2Location
company_
company_type = Internet
foundation = 2002
location_city = Penang
location_country = Malaysia
company_slogan = "Bringing Geographics to the Internet"
url = [http://www.ip2location.com/ IP2Location.com]

IP2Location is database-driven solution to identify visitors' geographical location such as their location (country, region, city, latitude, longitude, ZIP code, time zone), connection speed, ISP and domain name using their IP addressescite web |title=IP2Location|url=http://www.ip2location.com|accessdate=2007-12-28|format=HTML] . The technology is also known as IP geolocation. The solution is platform independent and can be integrated by almost all database system such as mySQL, MS-SQL server or others. The solution also comes with API in several programming languages .NETcite web |title=MSDN Mag|url=http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/05/03/NewStuff/default.aspx#S2|accessdate=2007-12-28|format=HTML] , Java, C, C++, Visual Basic, PHP, ColdFusioncite web |title=ColdFusion|url=http://www.bpurcell.org/viewcontent.cfm?contentID=147|accessdate=2008-01-02|format=HTML] , Perl, Ruby ad Python. IP2Location has been used by many other applications such as Wikiscannercite web |title=Wired Magazine|url=http://www.wired.com/politics/onlinerights/news/2007/08/wiki_tracker|accessdate=2007-12-28|format=HTML] .

Accuracy and criticism

Critics note that geolocation software is inherently inaccurate and conflicts with the global nature of the Internet. A research done by University of Toronto reported that the accuracy of IP2Location is leading other commercial providers cite paper|first=Troy|last=Ronda|author=Troy Ronda|coauthors=Bila, Nilton|title=Appono: A Geolocator for the Internet|publisher=University of Toronto|url=http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~ronda/courses/internet_systems/project/appono_report.pdf|format=PDF|id=appono|accessdate=2008-01-02] . The research was conducted based on datasets of 463 universities in United States and 1,000 broadband hosts. The accuracy is as high as 90% results within 50 km of error distance.

References