Mozilla Ends its Privacy-Friendly GPS-Style Location Service

Mozilla Location Service offered 'a free, open way to offer GPS-style location detection features' for developers on devices without GPS hardware, remembers the Linux blog OMG Ubuntu. It used signals like Wi-Fi access points and Bluetooth beacons 'without any of the privacy implications most competing geolocation services have.'

But Friday they reported that Mozilla 'has announced it is ending access to Mozilla Location Service (MLS), which provides accurate, privacy-respecting, and crowdsourced geolocation data.'

Developers and 3rd-party projects that use MLS to detect a users' location, such as the freedesktop.org location framework GeoClue, which is used by apps like GNOME Maps and Weather, have only a few months left to continue using the service... In late March, POST data submissions will return 403 responses. Finally, on June 12, all 3rd-party API keys will be removed and MLS data only accessible by Mozilla...

MLS' accuracy has declined in recent years. Patent infringement claims in 2019 saw Mozilla reach a settlement to avoid litigation. As part of that settlement it was forced to make changes to MLS that impacted its ability to invest in (commercially exploit?) and improve the service.

The article notes that GeoClue 'already supports multiple location detection methods, including IP-based ones,' so it should continue operating.

'But the sad reality is that there just aren't a lot of free, open, privacy-friendly, accurate, and (rather importantly for a framework built in to Linux desktops) reliable alternatives to Mozilla Location Services, which has built up a colossal 'signal map' from which to pinpoint locations.'

'We are grateful for the contributions of the community to MLS to both the code and the dataset,' a Mozilla senior engineering manager said in a statement.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.