GeoIP2 Release Notes - 2016 Archive

Change to Comcast Business ISP name

November 8, 2016

We’ve updated any GeoIP database or service providing ISP and Organization data to return Comcast Business rather than Comcast Business Communications. We are doing so in order to use the trade name of the ISP and also because it is shorter.

Please note that if you use this data point, for example, to flag a visitor if they change ISP, you may need to adjust your implementation in order to avoid false positive or negative flags.

The following GeoIP databases and services are affected by this change:

GeoIP2 ISP database
GeoIP2 Enterprise database (Update will apply to November 15th release)
GeoIP Legacy ISP and Organization databases
GeoIP2 City Plus and Legacy City Web Service
GeoIP2 and Legacy Insights Web Service

Improved GeoIP accuracy outside the US

September 15, 2016

The GeoIP City databases now provide significantly improved accuracy for countries outside the US, especially China, India, and Japan. See more information about GeoIP accuracy on https://www.maxmind.com/en/geoip2-city-database-accuracy

Accuracy radius to be added to GeoLite2 City, GeoIP2 City, and GeoIP2 City Plus

April 26, 2016

MaxMind will be adding accuracy radius to the GeoLite2 City and GeoIP2 City databases as well as the GeoIP2 City Plus web service.

The Accuracy Radius is an indication in kilometers of geolocation accuracy for the latitude and longitude coordinates we return for an IP address. The actual location of the IP address is likely within the area defined by this radius and the latitude and longitude coordinates.

As a reminder, the latitude and longitude coordinates we return for a given IP address are near either the population or geographic center of the most granular location data we return for that IP address (i.e., country, region/state, city, or postal code) and should not be used to identify a particular address or household.

For the binary databases and web service, this field will be available at /location/accuracy_radius. All official GeoIP2 client APIs already support this field.

For the CSV databases, a new accuracy_radius column will be added to the end of the IPv4 and IPv6 blocks files. Please test your integration to ensure compatibility before updating. You may test your integration by downloading the latest copy of the GeoLite2 CSV database, which already has the accuracy_radius column appended.

Target availability dates:

GeoLite2 City – May 3, 2016
GeoIP2 City – May 17, 2016
GeoIP2 City Plus – May 19, 2016

Change in default lat/lon

April 11, 2016

We are changing the latitude and longitude for two locations in our GeoIP and GeoLite databases. For IPs in the United States that we are unable to locate to a particular state or city, we will return 37.751, -97.822. For IPs that resolve to Ashburn, Virginia with zip code 20147, we will return 39.018, -77.539. We would like to remind customers that latitude and longitude values contained in the GeoIP databases are not precise and should not be used to identify a particular address or household.

Capitalization change for Verizon FiOS

February 26, 2016

We are updating the GeoIP ISP and Organization databases to return Verizon Fios instead of Verizon FiOS, due to a change in how Verizon capitalizes Fios. If you reference Verizon FiOS in code or a custom rule, note that you may need to revise these references to Verizon Fios.