The Privacy Erosion
Nearly every website you visit in Google Chrome triggers a small pop-up banner asking “[website] wants to know your location.” This is the browser’s Geolocation API permission prompt, and it fires whenever a website’s JavaScript code calls navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(). While location access is genuinely useful for mapping services and local weather widgets, the vast majority of these prompts come from advertising networks, news sites wanting to show “local stories,” and e-commerce platforms trying to pre-fill your nearest store. Clicking “Block” on each individual prompt is tedious, and the pop-ups are especially intrusive during research sessions where you are rapidly opening multiple new sites.
Blocking All Location Requests
To stop Google Chrome from automatically showing location permission prompts on every website you visit, you must change the default geolocation policy in Chrome’s Site Settings to block all requests globally.
Open Google Chrome. Click the three vertical dots in the top-right corner and select Settings. In the left-hand navigation pane, click on Privacy and security. Select Site settings. Scroll down to the “Permissions” section and click on Location. You will see the default behaviour, which is usually set to “Sites can ask for your location.” Change this to Don’t allow sites to see your location. With this setting active, Chrome will silently deny all geolocation requests without showing any pop-up. Websites will simply receive a “permission denied” response from the API and fall back to IP-based geolocation (which is far less precise) or prompt you to enter your location manually. If you later want to grant location access to a specific trusted site (such as Google Maps), you can add it to the “Allowed to see your location” list on the same settings page by clicking the Add button.