Apple Inc.'s iPhones and Google Inc.'s Android smartphones regularly transmit their locations back to Apple and Google, respectively,(...)
The business of collecting location information begain in 2003, when Boston-based Skyhook Inc. launched and began the practice of "wardriving"—cruising around in cars to collect information about Wi-Fi hotspots. Comparing the names and signal strengths of nearby Wi-Fi hotspots against a database allows for a cellphone's location to be determined within 100 feet, in many cases, Skyhook says.
"For the first four or five years, people thought we were nuts," said Ted Morgan, Skyhook's founder and CEO. "We invented this whole concept of driving around and scanning for Wi-Fi and tuning these algorithms."
[IPBiz post 7001]