Re: geographical info vs. network topology

Mark Dionne x5551 (md@marvin.hq.ileaf.com)
Tue, 26 Dec 95 11:55:52 EST


Are there good reasons to want the longitude and latitude of
a WWW client? In commerce, there are LOTS of reasons one might
want to know geographical information about a client site, even
if only approximate and not available part of the time.
Some examples:

- A distributor of furniture has an agreement with a manufacturer
limiting his region to east of the Mississippi river. They want
to put up a web site but they are not permitted to distribute
their catalog outside their region.

- A large breakfast cereal company puts up a promitional web site,
but it has many products that each have limited geographical
distribution.

- A company is test-marketing a product in a certain region...

- You want to list an "800" phone number in your document, and you
will save money if you list the one that is closest to the
client.

- A site for a politician wants to present different messages to
different regions of the country. :-)

I guarantee you that it won't be long before commercial sites
get really good at determining the geographical location, and a
lot more, about most hits at a site. They will be getting the info
through PSI, Netcom, AOL, Microsoft etc.

Mark Dionne
md@ileaf.com