A Unified Location Sharing Service With End User Privacy Control

摘要

With the rapid development of the Global Positioning System (GPS), Wi-Fi, and cell ID based positioning technologies, location based applications are becoming popular. In the development and deployment of location based applications, it is usually necessary to have common location platforms or location enablers which can collect and store the end user's location and then share it with the applications. This paper presents a location sharing service prototype which can transmit an end user location gathered from different sources (GPS location, physical address, Internet Protocol (IP) address, and cell ID) to location applications. The service is provided to end users and applications through open and simple Web service interfaces. In addition, it enables end users to set rules around how their location may be distributed. The paper describes the overall architecture of the service, focusing on its geocoding method and privacy control mechanism.