Google Memo Reveals Importance of Android Location Database

Just how important is location-based data to Google? Just how important is it for the sun to rise each morning? Same deal.

This question comes in the wake of eyes turning toward mobile handsets—specifically, Apple's iPhone and smartphones based on Google's Android OS—for the information they collect about the various wireless access points and cell phone towers the devices connect to (or notice) throughout the course of a given day.

We've already covered Apple's response to the allegations that the company tracks one's location via iPhones: It doesn't, says Apple. The information found on one's iPhone isn't personal movement tracking, rather, a subset of a larger list of nearby Wi-Fi hotspots and cellular access points that gets downloaded to one's iPhone. This list is used by the iPhone to help it more quickly triangulate its position and connect to available access points, a process that would take much longer if the smartphone relied on a GPS-based lookup of its location each time.

So what about Google?

In Google's case, the concept is the same, but the reasoning for doing so is a bit different. Google needs to be able to pinpoint the location of wireless signals emanating into the airwaves, for it uses this information to better help a smartphone triangulate its position. And, in doing so, this presumably allows a smartphone to know where it is for services like Foursquare or location-based advertising, among other products.

"Information about the location of WiFi networks improves the accuracy of the location-based services, such as Google Maps or driving directions, that Google provides to consumers," said Google last year in a letter to U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman. "Because GPS and cell tower data can be unreliable or inaccurate, in some cases using the location of Wi-Fi access points can enable a smartphone to pinpoint its own location more quickly and accurately."

However, the information Google receives about nearby wireless points from Android smartphones—an opt-in process—has been made even more critical, for the company has chosen to no longer collect this Wi-Fi information using its fleet of Street View cars. Google abandoned the practice late last year after it was revealed that the company unintentionally collected "payload data" from unsecured wireless networks as its Street View cars drove by.

A memo between Google product managers and now-CEO Larry Page, sent last year in the wake of Motorola opting to use a different location data service over Google's, reveals just how critical Android Wi-Fi tracking has become.

"I cannot stress enough how important Google's wifi location database is to our Android and mobile product strategy," wrote Google location service product manager Steve Lee. "We absolutely do care about this (decision by Motorola) because we need wifi data collection in order to maintain and improve our wifi location service."

PCmag