{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,17]],"date-time":"2026-03-17T20:11:44Z","timestamp":1773778304458,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":17,"publisher":"Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)","issue":"2","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2011,4,15]],"date-time":"2011-04-15T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1302825600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/www.acm.org\/publications\/policies\/copyright_policy#Background"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["dl.acm.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["SIGCOMM Comput. Commun. Rev."],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2011,4,15]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>The most widely used technique for IP geolocation consists in building a database to keep the mapping between IP blocks and a geographic location. Several databases are available and are frequently used by many services and web sites in the Internet. Contrary to widespread belief, geolocation databases are far from being as reliable as they claim. In this paper, we conduct a comparison of several current geolocation databases -both commercial and free- to have an insight of the limitations in their usability.<\/jats:p>\n          <jats:p>First, the vast majority of entries in the databases refer only to a few popular countries (e.g., U.S.). This creates an imbalance in the representation of countries across the IP blocks of the databases. Second, these entries do not reflect the original allocation of IP blocks, nor BGP announcements. In addition, we quantify the accuracy of geolocation databases on a large European ISP based on ground truth information. This is the first study using a ground truth showing that the overly fine granularity of database entries makes their accuracy worse, not better. Geolocation databases can claim country-level accuracy, but certainly not city-level.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1145\/1971162.1971171","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2011,4,19]],"date-time":"2011-04-19T12:45:10Z","timestamp":1303217110000},"page":"53-56","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":282,"title":["IP geolocation databases"],"prefix":"10.1145","volume":"41","author":[{"given":"Ingmar","family":"Poese","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Technische Universit\u00e4t Berlin\/ Deutsche Telekom Laboratories, Berlin, Germany"}]},{"given":"Steve","family":"Uhlig","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Technische Universit\u00e4t Berlin\/ Deutsche Telekom Laboratories, Berlin, Germany"}]},{"given":"Mohamed Ali","family":"Kaafar","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"INRIA Rh\u00f4ne-Alpes, Grenoble, France"}]},{"given":"Benoit","family":"Donnet","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Universtit\u00e9 catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-neuve, Belgium"}]},{"given":"Bamba","family":"Gueye","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Universit\u00e9 Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar, Dakar, Senegal"}]}],"member":"320","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2011,4,15]]},"reference":[{"key":"e_1_2_1_1_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/TNET.2006.886332"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_2_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/383059.383073"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_3_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/1177080.1177090"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_4_1","volume-title":"USENIX WORLDS Workshop","author":"Wong B.","year":"2005","unstructured":"B. Wong , I. Stoyanov , and E. G. Sirer , \" Golocalization on the Internet through constraint satisfaction,\" in Proc . USENIX WORLDS Workshop , November 2005 . B. Wong, I. Stoyanov, and E. G. Sirer, \"Golocalization on the Internet through constraint satisfaction,\" in Proc. USENIX WORLDS Workshop, November 2005."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_5_1","unstructured":"GeoURL The GeoURL ICBM address server http:\/\/www.geourl.org.  GeoURL The GeoURL ICBM address server http:\/\/www.geourl.org."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_6_1","unstructured":"Net World Map The net world map project http:\/\/www.networldmap.com.  Net World Map The net world map project http:\/\/www.networldmap.com."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_7_1","unstructured":"Host IP My IP address lookup and geotargeting community geotarget IP project http:\/\/www.hostip.info.  Host IP My IP address lookup and geotargeting community geotarget IP project http:\/\/www.hostip.info."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_8_1","unstructured":"IPInfoDB Free IP address geolocation tools http:\/\/ipinfodb.com\/.  IPInfoDB Free IP address geolocation tools http:\/\/ipinfodb.com\/."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_9_1","unstructured":"Software 77 Free IP to country database http:\/\/software77.net\/geo-ip\/.  Software 77 Free IP to country database http:\/\/software77.net\/geo-ip\/."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_10_1","unstructured":"Akamai Inc. \"Akamai \" http:\/\/www.akamai.com.  Akamai Inc. \"Akamai \" http:\/\/www.akamai.com."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_11_1","unstructured":"GeoBytes Inc. 'GeoNetMap - geobytes' IP address to geographic location database http:\/\/www.geobytes.com\/GeoNetMap.htm.  GeoBytes Inc. 'GeoNetMap - geobytes' IP address to geographic location database http:\/\/www.geobytes.com\/GeoNetMap.htm."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_12_1","unstructured":"Hexasoft Development Sdn. Bhd \"IP address geolocation to identify website visitor's geographical location \" http:\/\/www.ip2location.com.  Hexasoft Development Sdn. Bhd \"IP address geolocation to identify website visitor's geographical location \" http:\/\/www.ip2location.com."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_13_1","unstructured":"Quova Inc. GeoPoint - IP geolocation experts http:\/\/www.quova.com.  Quova Inc. GeoPoint - IP geolocation experts http:\/\/www.quova.com."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_14_1","unstructured":"MaxMind \"Geolocation and online fraud prevention from MaxMind \" http:\/\/www.maxmind.com\/.  MaxMind \"Geolocation and online fraud prevention from MaxMind \" http:\/\/www.maxmind.com\/."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_15_1","volume-title":"PAM Conference","author":"Gueye B.","year":"2007","unstructured":"B. Gueye , S. Uhlig , and S. Fdida , \" Investigating the imprecision of IP block-based geolocation,\" in Proc . PAM Conference , April 2007 . B. Gueye, S. Uhlig, and S. Fdida, \"Investigating the imprecision of IP block-based geolocation,\" in Proc. PAM Conference, April 2007."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_16_1","volume-title":"PAM Conference","author":"Siwpersad S.","year":"2008","unstructured":"S. Siwpersad , B. Gueye , and S. Uhlig , \" Assessing the geographic resolution of exhaustive tabulation for geolocating Internet hosts,\" in Proc . PAM Conference , April 2008 . S. Siwpersad, B. Gueye, and S. Uhlig, \"Assessing the geographic resolution of exhaustive tabulation for geolocating Internet hosts,\" in Proc. PAM Conference, April 2008."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_17_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.5555\/1251086.1251099"}],"container-title":["ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/dl.acm.org\/doi\/10.1145\/1971162.1971171","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/dl.acm.org\/doi\/pdf\/10.1145\/1971162.1971171","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,6,18]],"date-time":"2025-06-18T11:05:52Z","timestamp":1750244752000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/dl.acm.org\/doi\/10.1145\/1971162.1971171"}},"subtitle":["unreliable?"],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2011,4,15]]},"references-count":17,"journal-issue":{"issue":"2","published-print":{"date-parts":[[2011,4,15]]}},"alternative-id":["10.1145\/1971162.1971171"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/1971162.1971171","relation":{},"ISSN":["0146-4833"],"issn-type":[{"value":"0146-4833","type":"print"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2011,4,15]]},"assertion":[{"value":"2011-04-15","order":2,"name":"published","label":"Published","group":{"name":"publication_history","label":"Publication History"}}]}}