The HTML5 Geolocation API realizes location-based services via the Web by granting web sites the geographical location information of user devices. However, the Geolocation API can violate a user\u2019s location privacy due to its coarse-grained permission and location models. The API provides either exact location or nothing to web sites even when they only require approximate location. In this paper, we \ufb01rst conduct case studies on numerous web browsers and web sites to explore how they implement and utilize the Geolocation API. We detect 14 vulnerable web browsers and 603 overprivileged web sites that can violate a user\u2019s location privacy. To mitigate the privacy threats of the Geolocation API, we propose a novel scheme that (1) supports \ufb01ne-grained permission and location models, and (2) recommends appropriate privacy settings to each user by inspecting the location sensitivity of each web page. Our scheme can accurately estimate each web page\u2019s necessary geolocation degree (estimation accuracy: \u223c93.5%). We further provide suggestions to improve the Geolocation API.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The HTML5 Geolocation API realizes location-based services via the Web by granting web sites the geographical location information of user devices. However, the Geolocation API can violate a user\u2019s location privacy due to its coarse-grained permission and location models. The API provides either exact location or nothing to web sites even when they only require 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