A wireless MAC address from a coffeeshop in San Francisco's Mission district was also spotted in this location a few miles away here through Google's geolocation database, before the company curbed access. (Click for full-sized image.)
(Credit: Ashkan Soltani)
If you're worried about the street address of your home Wi-Fi hotspot being public, Google has a solution.
The Mountain View, Calif.-based company late today announced a way for the owners of Wi-Fi networks to be removed from Google's crowdsourced geolocation database, which it reworked this summer after CNET drew attention to privacy concerns.
It's simple: all you need to do is append "_nomap" to the name of the Wi-Fi network. So "theharrisons" becomes "theharrisons_nomap".
"As we explored different approaches for opting-out access points from the Google Location Server, we found that a method based on wireless network names provides the right balance of simplicity as well as protection against abuse," Peter Fleischer, Google's global privacy counsel, wrote in a blog post. "Specifically, this approa... [Read more]
Removing your Wi-Fi network from Google's map
Declan McCullagh
Tue, 15 Nov 2011 07:00:00 GMT
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