Add settings to control geoip usage for location

[Pat McGowan]

When location detection is enabled geoip is used by default. Unlike the other methods there is no separate control provided to enable and disable its use. This should be added to the Security and Privacy > Location panel and to the wizard.

This somewhat complicates the options.
Use GPS only
Use GPS with Geoip (default)
Use GPS, Wifi, etc (opt in)

[Thomas Voß (thomas-voss)]

I think we should factor out geoip-based lookups returning lat/lon to the location service. That leaves us with the geocoding/reverse geocoding task, though.

[Pat McGowan (pat-mcgowan)]

unity8 task for the wizard unless its using shared code for that

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

This is the first mention I've seen of Ubuntu Touch using GeoIP. Is it new?

Anyway, the premise of this bug report is not correct. It is not the case that with each of "the other methods there is [a] separate control provided to enable and disable its use". In particular, you can't choose to have detection based on cell towers but not wi-fi networks, wi-fi networks but not cell towers, cell towers but not GPS, or wi-fi networks but not GPS. (That the indicator contains a switch labelled "GPS" is bug 1520580.)

The only choice we provide -- other than no location detection at all -- is GPS+cell+wi-fi, vs. GPS alone. This is because the former requires you to accept the HERE terms and conditions, while the latter does not.

If there is a good reason to offer other combinations, then let's discuss that and whether it is worth making the location UI even more complicated. Even if it is, that probably wouldn't involve having a separate control for each data source.

[Alberto Mardegan (mardy)]

There is a concern about delivering sensitive information to third parties. The GPS is a passive device (that is, it's not sending out data, just receiving it), so even privacy-aware users can use it with no concerns. But cell+wifi means that the device is sending quite a lot of location information to the location servers (Nokia HERE, and we might implement more in the future), so it can be understood that some users might want to disable that. GeoIP is about sharing your IP address with the location servers; it's sensibly less information than handing out the cell and wifi APs around you, so some privacy aware users could be fine with that.

Since we are talking about it, an option that I'd really love to see is the possibility of having the location detection enabled with just wifi+cell, without the GPS running (to save battery). So, I'd really like if the GPS chip could be individually turned on and off, separately from all other methods.

One possible UI:

- Location detection [ON/OFF]
  - GPS [ON/OFF]
  - Wifi+cell [ON/OFF]
  - GeoIP {ON/OFF] (but if the above is ON, this control could be set automatically to ON and made not interactive)

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

The location settings appear during initial setup, so they were tested as part of a prototype for the setup last September. It turned out to be one of the steps that people had most trouble with, saying things like "Wow There’s a lot of words on this page, this is GPS right?". For that reason, I'm working on making the location settings simpler rather than more complex.

It's implausible to me that a non-trivial number of Ubuntu users would be happy to disclose their Wi-Fi and cell tower info, but not happy with sharing their IP address, or vice versa. And for everyone else it would be a reduction in understandability, and an opportunity cost of reliability and more useful features. So, I'm going to say no to this.

[Albert Astals Cid (aacid)]

Following won't fix of ubuntu ux

[Pat McGowan (pat-mcgowan)]

Will add a new bug per comment #1