What are the implications of clicking that 'Share location' button?

I'm not sure, is that an iphone thing? I guess in retrospect this link is kinda specialized but I found it hilarious

I got the 'share location' button in firefox, clicked 'ok' and dang if it didn't locate nearly my exact spot. But apparently the answer is 'no'? I'm interested in the joke, but don't get it.

ohh. okay yeah I loaded it in chrome expecting yes/no but got a No with a location in the water near the south pole and thought that was the joke.

But now that I look at the source, before doing a random position, it does attempt to do geolocation via getting info as well.. so maybe it's a more subtle joke to do with various browser implementations and wars going on behind the scenes with the spec. Those wars can get very very heated and nasty so I haven't really been following them..

It shows you where you are if you load it on an iPhone (but the bubble still says "No.")

(I presume the site was created to win some argument or other. I wonder what?)

Got the right city, but it's about five miles from where I really am. Bubble says "no".

Okay upon a little bit of research it turns out that geolocation is indeed not part of the HTML5 spec. So any implementations that actually work using the script on that page are using another other parallel specification. (FYI the way firefox does it is to use google location services)

So yeah cillit bang you were right it's part of geek infighting :)

Yeah, I think the point it's making is that there are a whole bunch of 'next-generation' standards/technologies being specified/implemented at the moment in the web arena, and it's becoming quite common to refer to them all as a collection using the catch-all phrase 'HTML5' (since that is a hot buzzword at the moment). But, strictly speaking, that's wrong, since there are in fact several separate things that are being developed (HTML5, CSS 3, the geolocation API, etc.). So the geolocation API is a real thing (which the site proves by showing your location if you're using a browser that supports it), but it's not part of the HTML5 spec (which is why it says 'No').

With NoScript blocking the domain, I get this:
≡ Click to see image ≡

With NoScript allowing the site, I get this notification banner on top of my screen, which is all that lovely shade of blue:
≡ Click to see image ≡

On my Droid, I get a map of the northern hemisphere, with the No speech bubble originating in the Gulf of Alaska (Google Maps approximate location)

How does Google Location Services determine ones location? Is it the ISP that divulges ones address?

filthy light thief: If you turn JavaScript off, Google Maps doesn't work at all, so you just get the blue background colour. And the code on this web page just generates a random lat/long and displays that if it can't get the geolocation API to work.

jouke: Google Location Services is one of these ones that uses the IDs of the wifi networks (and cell towers if your device supports that) that your computer can currently see to estimate your location. They have a database of locations of wifi hotspots (which I'm guessing they gathered at the same time they were driving around gathering photos for Street View). So it requires a browser specifically built with the feature in mind, since ordinarily a web page can't query your computer for information about its wireless connection.

I think Firefox also uses regular geolocation-by-IP-address, the data for which comes from many sources and is often pretty inaccurate. I don't think consumer ISPs are in the habit of directly publishing data that connects individual subscribers' addresses with their assigned IP addresses. Instead you'll sometimes see GeoIP services returning the location of your ISP's office address or something like that, since their allocation of IP addresses has been registered to their office address, and that's the best location data the GeoIP services have.

What are the implications of clicking that 'Share location' button?

Your browser will deliver an (estimated) latitude and longitude of your location to the JavaScript running on that page. In the case of this particular web page, it doesn't do anything more with it than to display a Google Map of that latitude and longitude. But other web pages using geolocation could do anything with that data, such as saving it to your user profile.

Essentially, it's the same as if the web page were to put up two normal text boxes for you to enter your latitude and longitude manually -- the browser just automates that step for you. Then it's like any other website that you enter information into: it's up to you whether you trust the website with that information.

Thanks for elucidating that chrismear. That makes total sense.
Very reassuring that I can control the flow of information. :-)

Of course it means that they'll have to drive through every street on the planet regularly to scan the wireless hotspots. Because people move and get new wireless lans.
That seems a daunting task...