[Sigia-l] proffing user's location

[Mary Wisnewski]

>> 
>> Javier, your tech team is   w  r  o  n  g.   :)    It *can* be 
>> done via IP.  Though, there may be some flaws.
>
>Mind you, what was being asked for was a way to "_prove_ the user's
location".
>
>At best, IP look-up offers a guess, not a prove.


I agree with the 2 above comments.  It's a guess, not a sure thing..
Peter's link placed me in the right county, but not the right city... pretty
close.. and probably good enough for an judgement of which international
version to give me.  There might be trouble with small countries if this is
the range of error involved in <http://www.geobutton.com/geophrase.htm>.

But other systems I've seen in use get this wrong.  My company is based in
Canada.  The domain name registration records for all our public domains use
Canadian addresses.  I presume this is why when I go to
<http://www.google.com/>, I am thoughtfully redirected to
<http://www.google.ca/> .  Where I am greeted with lovely banner images
celebrating Canadian holidays that I don't get paid time off for.  I've
tried to convince Google that I'm not in Canada.. but I can't do it.  I have
no idea how this affects my user experience.  I'd like to know.. but my
research hasn't been fruitful in this area.

So.. please be careful how much you rely solely on IP number.  And please
allow the user a mechanism of correcting a mistaken assumption.

-mary
-- 
Mary Wisnewski                    Editor, Partner Information Center
mwisnews at nortelnetworks.com       408.495.2407 (ESN 265)