Hi,
Neither the end user nor the ISP has any way to know that IPinfo is at fault.
Neither party knows that IPinfo even exists.
You are right. IP geolocation should be invisible. Our approach fundamentally
relies on the fact data is so good, we do not even exist. But the issue is that
even with a million probe servers, IP geolocation can never be fully accurate
in real time. How do we address the issue?
Your contractual relationship is only with the media distributor, and so is the
end user's, and the ISP only had a contractual relationship with the end user.
For our enterprise customers, we have established multi-channel escalation
processes. I can describe what this looks like using Cloudflare as an example,
since they are the largest internet company in the world:
- Cloudflare's support and product teams have direct communication channels
with our engineering and support teams.
- Issues are escalated to us through automated processes.
- Their community moderators and MVP users are aware of us and can flag issues
directly.
In the Cloudflare community, we see roughly one issue per month that involves
our data, and most of those require explanation rather than correction.
Example: https://community.cloudflare.com/search?q=ipinfo%20order%3Alatest
Please understand that is Cloudflare and all their scale.
OPNsense adopted our data as well. We made it clear to them that IP geolocation
accuracy is our responsibility, not theirs. The issues I have seen in their
forums have been cases requiring investigation and explanation, not systematic
data failures: https://forum.opnsense.org/index.php?action=ipinfo
Our accountability extends beyond paying customers to include users accessing
our free data - IPinfo Lite (Country + ASN). We are actively reaching out to
firewall companies to encourage them to adopt our free data, because end-users
often experience frustration due to inaccurate IP geolocation data services.
So, we are willing to provide our data for free in order to support their
end-users.
You are saying end users must inform you, but they don't know you exist. You
are saying ISPs must inform you, but they mostly don't know you exist.
I am not saying either must inform us.
For end users: our enterprise customers are instructed to maintain an
escalation process. When an end user reports a location issue, the customer
identifies whether it is an IP geolocation problem and forwards it to us
through an automated channel. We investigate and resolve or explain within 24
hours. The end user does not need to know we exist for this to work.
For ISPs: this is the reason we invested in active measurement rather than
relying exclusively on geofeeds. Many ISPs do not publish geofeeds, do not
maintain them, and do not know which IP geolocation providers are serving data
about their prefixes. We chose to build a system that does not depend on ISP
participation to produce accurate data. When ISPs do engage with us, it helps.
But their participation is voluntary, not required.
Again, we appreciate all the ISPs for their due diligence and effort to keep
their geofeed.
And when an ISP does inform you, you push back on them, saying you trust the
probe network more than the ISP.
When our active measurement data conflicts with a geofeed or an ISP correction,
we investigate. If the ISP's information is more accurate, we fall back to
their geofeed and increase its priority score in our system to avoid the same
issue recurring. This is not pushback — it is a verification step.
If you think media distributors must inform the end user to contact you first
in the event of an IP geolocation problem, you must write that into your
contracts with them.
We do not require end users to contact us. The escalation path is: end user
contacts the service provider, the service provider's support identifies an IP
geolocation issue, and it is forwarded to us. This is part of our operational
process with enterprise customers.
Again, you are absolutely not required to talk to us. Nobody is required to
talk to us. And the only path towards that on a systematic and macro level is
active measurement.
Our data is getting more granular and accurate. It is a continuous investment.
We are only limited by how universal adoption of our data has been.
ISPs, end users, network operators who are not our direct customers — we
monitor public forums daily. This includes NANOG, Reddit
(https://old.reddit.com/user/reincdr/), Hacker News, and customer community
platforms for services that use our data. When someone has a complaint about IP
geolocation, even if it is not specifically about us, we investigate. That is
how we entered this thread. The original discussion was about BGP communities,
not about us.
You say you are trying to distance yourselves from the rest of the industry,
but you are only saying this with your words, not showing it with your actions.
I understand that perspective. Here is what we are doing:
- We maintain public presence in operator forums and respond to complaints,
including complaints that are not directed at us.
- We have a self-serve correction portal: https://ipinfo.io/corrections
- We have a support channel: https://ipinfo.io/support
- We are expanding ProbeNet to improve measurement accuracy so that fewer
issues arise in the first place.
- When our data is wrong and an ISP or end user flags it, we fall back to
geofeed data and adjust the priority scoring to prevent recurrence.
I acknowledge that forum monitoring is not the same as systematic routing of
complaints. We are working on improving discoverability. If you have specific
suggestions on how we can make it easier for affected parties to reach us, we
are genuinely interested.
— Abdullah | DevRel, IPinfo
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