The Value of Geographic Locations Submitted by Internet Users

Authors

• • Dan Komosny
    • Department of Telecommunications, Brno University of Technology, Brno, Czech Republic

• Miralem Mehic
  • • Department of Telecommunications, University of Sarajevo, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
  • • Department of Telecommunications, VSB-Technical University of Ostrava, Ostrava-Poruba, Czech Republic

Abstract

Internet users may be asked to manually provide their contact details including city or full postal address. Examples include use of trial/free applications and services, filling out on-line surveys and petitions, and membership registration to loyalty programs. Many users may provide their correct location, whereas others may submit inaccurate data. The provided locations are used for geo-analytical purposes including the interpretation of survey results, on-line content personalization, and targeted marketing. In this paper we analyse differences in user behaviour when they provide their location. We work with two datasets of user-submitted locations. These datasets differ in how the locations were submitted: voluntary by purpose-aware users without being asked to or by requesting it from common Internet users. The locations from the purpose-aware users were about 2.5× more accurate than from the other users. We also present data for selected countries. The best result was found for the users in the USA with a median error of 44 km (the difference between the correct and user-submitted location). The results also show different user behaviour depends on the place from which they provide their location. The locations submitted from home were 1.5× more accurate than from the office.