CloudServices/Location/Goals

Goals

Assumptions / Current landscape

• Geo-location lookup is a very useful service to provide to users.
• There's no public data set to provide this service.
• None of the current companies offering this type of service has any incentive to improve on privacy.
• Geo-location lookup and the potential for tracking the physical movement of individuals is a serious privacy issue.

Why Mozilla?

• The web platform needs the capability, and currently we have to provide it in our offerings through business deals without much impact on the privacy aspects of the service.
• We have a unique access to Firefox (OS) on lots of devices for gathering and reporting back data.
• We don't have to monetize the gathered data and can make it available to the public.
• If we can run a successful service, we get leverage to improve the privacy aspects in the landscape.

Goals

• Provide a highly accurate geo-location service for any device and in any country, based on publicly sent signal information (like cell towers, wifi, IP addresses).
• Improve the privacy aspects of the geo-location service compared to the current market offerings.
• Make as much of the data as possible available under permissive open licenses.

Non-goals

• Compete on the full scale of location related services, like maps, geo-coding, driving directions.