The Privacy Implications of Geolocation
When you visit a website that wants to know your physical location (like a weather forecast site or a store locator), it will display a pop-up asking for permission. If you grant it, Google Chrome attempts to determine your location. If your PC does not have a built-in GPS chip (as most desktop computers do not), Chrome relies on “Google’s Location Service.”
To figure out where you are, Chrome scans your local network and sends a list of every nearby Wi-Fi router (their MAC addresses and signal strengths), along with your computer’s IP address, directly to Google’s servers. Google compares this data against their massive, global database of Wi-Fi networks to pinpoint your location. If you are uncomfortable with your browser actively scanning your local environment and transmitting that telemetry back to Google every time a website asks for your location, you must disable the service.
How to Disable Google’s Location Service
You can stop Chrome from using Google’s servers for geolocation in the Site Settings.
- Open Google Chrome.
- Click the three vertical dots in the top-right corner and select Settings.
- In the left-hand sidebar, click on Privacy and security.
- In the main pane, click on Site settings.
- Scroll down to the “Permissions” section and click on Location.
- At the top of the Location settings page, you will see a toggle for the default behavior. Ensure it is set to “Don’t allow sites to see your location” for maximum privacy.
- To specifically disable the Google telemetry fallback, you may need to look in the main Sync and Google services menu (Settings > You and Google), as the explicit toggle for “Use a web service to help resolve navigation errors/location” has been merged into general telemetry settings in recent updates. Ensure Make searches and browsing better is disabled.
By preventing Chrome from accessing your location entirely, you ensure that local Wi-Fi telemetry is never gathered or transmitted to Google’s servers.