Google knows the geolocation of your WiFi Router

[Xentrk]

I recently purchased my first Android (Nvidia) box and posted in the multimedia forum my recent discovery that Android boxes requirement to use Wi-Fi signal of the router to determine geolocation rather than the WAN IP address, or in my case, VPN IP Address.

I have been doing some searching on the topic and found that Google and other vendors are tracking the geolocation of routers, SSID and MAC address included. This has been known for awhile. But never popped up on my radar until now.

Here is a snip from one of the articles:
"How it works, according to Google, is that the Android Location Services periodically checks on your location using GPS, Cell-ID, and Wi-Fi to locate your device. When it does this, your Android phone will send back publicly broadcast Wi-Fi access points' Service set identifier (SSID) and Media Access Control (MAC) data. Again, this isn't just how Google does it; it's how everyone does it. It's Industry practice for location database vendors."

Articles I on the topic:
How Does Google Know Where Your WiFi Router Is?
How to keep your Wi-Fi location out of Google
How Google--and everyone else--gets Wi-Fi location data
Spoofing WiFi geolocation

The only fix I could find is the SkyLift low-cost geolocation spoofing device available for build. Looks interesting.
https://schloss-post.com/the-future-of-living-with-surveillance/
https://github.com/adamhrv/skylift

 

[Internet Man]

Back in the day they got in some trouble for collecting actual data from unsecured wireless networks.https://www.wired.com/2012/05/google-wifi-fcc-investigation/

An Intentional Mistake: The Anatomy of Google's Wi-Fi Sniffing Debacle

 

[sfx2000]

I have been doing some searching on the topic and found that Google and other vendors are tracking the geolocation of routers, SSID and MAC address included. This has been known for awhile. But never popped up on my radar until now.

It's more the content providers these days - it's complicated, but generally they know your geo - and they don't need Android to get visibility into that...

As much effort as the user community has done to get beyond get blocks, they're doing the same - and they have much more info to work with.