Comment by flounder3
2 years ago
Even 10 years ago, Apple internal privacy policies prevented itself from collecting precise lat/long. We had to use HTTP session telemetry to determine which endpoints were best for a given IP (or subnet, but not ASN), which informed our own pseudo-geoIP database so we knew which endpoint to connect to based on real world conditions.
Even still, it had to be as ephemeral as possible for the sake of privacy. We weren’t allowed to use or record results from Apple Maps’ reverse geo service outside of the context of a live user request (finding nearby restaurants, etc).
You don't need precise lat/lon to make a good database. Even a 1km circle would be more than enough.
> but not ASN
Why wasn't ASN allowed? That's what Netflix used to make endpoint routing decisions and worked really well.
You’re not wrong, but privacy concerns were paramount.
ASNs were allowed but too vague. We needed more granularity. Corporate proxies, subdelegations, many providers aggregating announcements below /24, etc.