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I built a simple API using pure NGINX to get the IP address of a client, for times when I needed to ask a customer for his IP address; it was easier sending them a URL for a service I control, than explaining how they could get that information another way. Now I have been thinking about opening it up for more people because while there are a variety of these services out there, one more does not hurt — it already exists, and works, so who knows, maybe more people would like to use it. The code is open, and access logs go to /dev/null; I could probably add a read-only SSH user for people to confirm that for themselves. Geolocation could easily be added to it, but then comes my question: is there any use-case for geolocation APIs that does not involve tracking users for shitty purposes? I was excited about adding this feature because I am using pure NGINX for it, and it was a fun learning experience, but I asked myself that question when I started writing the documentation for the website, and I still do not have an answer. Marketing material for other APIs that offer geolocation usually have user tracking as a selling point. Personally, I have no use for geolocation, and if all use-cases involve tracking without consent users, and breaking their privacy, I want no part in that. |
I work with an event org with a fairly common name, and another city in our region has an event with the same name. For some years, we’ve outranked them for major keywords and getting their confused customers was becoming a headache for us.
So now if our website thinks you’re in the other city, a little banner appears above the content asking if you’re looking for the other site, and offers the link.
This has saved us ~10 phone calls per day in season. Before adding this link we all got to the point of just doing their customer service for them and helping people buy tickets because it was less drama than trying to get them to call the right people.