How does Google calculate my location on a desktop?

Question

Right this is confusing me quite a bit, i\'m not sure if any of you have noticed or used the \"my location\" feature on google maps using your desktop (or none GPS/none mobi

Answer 1

It's a lot more simple that you think. You've signed into both your mobile and Chrome on your desktop using the same Google account. Google simply expect you will have your mobile with you most of the time. They take the location data from your phone and assume the location of your current desktop session is the same.

I proved this by RDPing into my Windows machine at home from work and checking Google maps remotely. It show my location as the same as Chrome on Linux at work.

If you don't have a mobile that is signed into Google then all they can do is lookup GeoIP data for the IP address assigned by your ISP. It will typically be wildly inaccurate.