GeoIP2 Release Notes - 2020 Archive

United Kingdom will no longer be flagged is_in_european_union

Effective January 5, 2021, the is_in_european_union flag will no longer be marked true for locations in the United Kingdom. This change will be reflected in the data in GeoLite2 databases and web services, GeoIP2 databases, GeoIP2 web services, and minFraud Insights and Factors services.

GeoLite2 web service released

We have released a free IP geolocation API, which allows users to query our GeoLite2 data. See our blog for an overview of the GeoLite2 web service. You can learn how to integrate the GeoLite2 web service in our Getting Started with GeoLite2 guide.

Notifications for database update delays

We now provide direct notifications in the rare event of a database update delay (past 11:59 PM EST on Tuesdays) on our service status page. You can subscribe to these updates by email, webhook, or RSS. To subscribe, click the button in the upper right of the page. After subscribing to updates, select 'Manage Existing Subscription' to manage which services you receive updates for. You can deselect services and servers which are not relevant to you, though you should ensure ‘New Database Update Releases’ is selected.

GeoNames Monthly Diff Report December 2020

GeoNames Monthly Diff Report (December 2020)

GeoIP2 and GeoLite2 databases incorporate GeoNames geographical data, which is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Monthly updates to GeoNames data are incorporated into our databases as we refresh them. Above you will find a CSV report of these changes for the month of December as they relate to the following fields:

• geoname_id
• country_name
• country_code
• city_name
• subdivision_1_iso_code
• subdivision_2_iso_code

Note that the values for the 'old' and ‘new’ columns for a given field only differ for the field defined in the ‘diff_in’ column.

* We have updated the names of several countries to their short names (e.g. Republic of Lithuania to Lithuania). These changes will show up in this month's GeoIP2 builds.

GeoNames Monthly Diff Report November 2020

GeoNames Monthly Diff Report (November 2020)

GeoIP2 and GeoLite2 databases incorporate GeoNames geographical data, which is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Monthly updates to GeoNames data are incorporated into our databases as we refresh them. Above you will find a CSV report of these changes for the month of November as they relate to the following fields:

• geoname_id
• country_name
• country_code
• city_name
• subdivision_1_iso_code
• subdivision_2_iso_code

Note that the values for the 'old' and ‘new’ columns for a given field only differ for the field defined in the ‘diff_in’ column.

New Data Point is_residential_proxy Released for GeoIP2 Anonymous IP

We have released an additional data point for the GeoIP2 Anonymous IP Database. Subscribers can now identify whether an IP address is likely a residential proxy:

• is_residential _proxy – 1 if the IP address is on a suspected anonymizing network and belongs to a residential ISP. Blank if not.

CSV file users: A new data column will be added to the end of the following files:

• GeoIP2-Anonymous-IP-Blocks-IPv4.csv
• GeoIP2-Anonymous-IP-Blocks-IPv6.csv

Binary MMDB file users: You will need to update your MMDB reader to support look-ups containing the new output when it is released.

New Output is_residential_proxy Released for GeoIP2 Insights Web Service, minFraud Insights, and minFraud Factors

We have released an additional output for our web services. GeoIP2 Insights, minFraud Insights, and minFraud Factors customers can now see whether an IP address is likely a residential proxy:

• /traits/is_residential_proxy – This is true if the IP address is on a suspected anonymizing network and belongs to a residential ISP. Otherwise, the key is not included in the traits object.

Our client APIs have been updated to support these outputs so may need to refresh yours if you are not interfacing directly with our REST API.

Residential proxy flag deployment

The release of the new is_residential_proxy output for the GeoIP2 Anonymous IP database, which was originally scheduled for today (October 19, 2020), will instead happen tomorrow (October 20, 2020). We expect the database update will go out around 12:30pm UTC.

GeoNames Monthly Diff Report October 2020

GeoNames Monthly Diff Report (October 2020)

GeoIP2 and GeoLite2 databases incorporate GeoNames geographical data, which is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Monthly updates to GeoNames data are incorporated into our databases as we refresh them. Above you will find a CSV report of these changes for the month of October as they relate to the following fields:

• geoname_id
• country_name
• country_code
• city_name
• subdivision_1_iso_code
• subdivision_2_iso_code

Note that the values for the 'old' and ‘new’ columns for a given field only differ for the field defined in the ‘diff_in’ column.

Flagging more networks as 'corporate'

Effective September 21, 2020 we will be flagging significantly more IP networks used by data centers and businesses as Corporate in the GeoIP2 Connection Type database. We expect the size of the MMDB file to increase by about 20% and the size of the CSV file to increase by about 210%.

Billing and Product/Service Permission Types for Standard Users

We have added a new permission category for the Standard User type. The Product/Service permission grants a Standard User access to product and service related functionality in the account portal without having access to user management and billing functionality. For more information, consult our Multi-User Account Access Guide.

GeoNames Monthly Diff Report September 2020

GeoNames Monthly Diff Report (September 2020)

GeoIP2 and GeoLite2 databases incorporate GeoNames geographical data, which is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Monthly updates to GeoNames data are incorporated into our databases as we refresh them. Below you will find a CSV report of these changes for the month of September as they relate to the following fields:

• geoname_id
• country_name
• country_code
• city_name
• subdivision_1_iso_code
• subdivision_2_iso_code

Note that the values for the 'old' and ‘new’ columns for a given field only differ for the field defined in the ‘diff_in’ column.

Decommissioned GeoIP2 JavaScript API Domain

In order to provide the best cross-browser support, we have migrated the GeoIP2 JavaScript Client API from geoip-js.maxmind.com to geoip-js.com. The geoip-js.maxmind.com URL will be decommissioned at 5:00pm EDT today. If you have not already migrated your integration to geoip-js.com, please update your version of the GeoIP2 JavaScript Client API to the version currently available on our website. If you have your own forked version, update the domain name used for the service request from geoip-js.maxmind.com to geoip-js.com.

Incorrect Spanish IP mappings to El Salvador

GeoIP databases released the week of August 11, 2020 contain an issue where approximately 1% of Spanish IPs incorrectly map to El Salvador. We are working on a fix and plan to release corrected GeoIP databases tomorrow (August 14, 2020).

GeoNames Monthly Diff Report August 2020

GeoNames Monthly Diff Report (August 2020)

GeoIP2 and GeoLite2 databases incorporate GeoNames geographical data, which is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Monthly updates to GeoNames data are incorporated into our databases as we refresh them. Below you will find a CSV report of these changes for the month of August as they relate to the following fields:

• geoname_id
• country_name
• country_code
• city_name
• subdivision_1_iso_code
• subdivision_2_iso_code

Note that the values for the 'old' and ‘new’ columns for a given field only differ for the field defined in the ‘diff_in’ column.

*GeoNames is changing the time zone for some larger cities in Northern Vietnam to Asia/Bangkok instead of Asia/Ho_Chi_Minh, though the UTC offset remains the same. For more info see this thread. These changes will show up in this month's GeoIP2 builds.

GeoNames Monthly Diff Report July 2020

GeoNames Monthly Diff Report (July 2020)

GeoIP2 and GeoLite2 databases incorporate GeoNames geographical data, which is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Monthly updates to GeoNames data are incorporated into our databases as we refresh them. Above you will find a CSV report of upcoming changes for the month of July as they relate to the following fields:

• geoname_id
• country_name
• country_code
• city_name
• subdivision_1_iso_code
• subdivision_2_iso_code

Note that the values for the 'old' and ‘new’ columns for a given field only differ for the field defined in the ‘diff_in’ column.

FIDO2 Support for Two-Factor Authentication

We've updated our Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) implementation to the FIDO2 standard, which supports more web browsers and more types of security keys (e.g. supported biometrics keys). See our Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) User Guide for more information.

GeoNames Monthly Diff Report June 2020

GeoNames Monthly Diff Report (June 2020)

GeoIP2 and GeoLite2 databases incorporate GeoNames geographical data, which is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Monthly updates to GeoNames data are incorporated into our databases as we refresh them. Above you will find a CSV report of upcoming changes for the month of June as they relate to the following fields:

• geoname_id
• country_name
• country_code
• city_name
• subdivision_1_iso_code
• subdivision_2_iso_code

Note that the values for the 'old' and ‘new’ columns for a given field only differ for the field defined in the ‘diff_in’ column.

GeoNames Monthly Diff Report May 2020

GeoNames Monthly Diff Report (May 2020)

GeoIP2 and GeoLite2 databases incorporate GeoNames geographical data, which is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Monthly updates to GeoNames data are incorporated into our databases as we refresh them. Above you will find a CSV report of upcoming changes for the month of May as they relate to the following fields:

• geoname_id
• country_name
• country_code
• city_name
• subdivision_1_iso_code
• subdivision_2_iso_code

Note that the values for the 'old' and ‘new’ columns for a given field only differ for the field defined in the ‘diff_in’ column.

Resolving to borough of Queens for Queens, NY, neighborhoods

Effective May 11, 2020, we will begin resolving IPs that currently return the neighborhood of Astoria (Queens, NY) to the corresponding borough of Queens in the city name field. We will then resolve the remaining Queens neighborhoods to Queens starting May 18, 2020.

For more granular place identification (such as neighborhood), we recommend using the postal code where provided.

GeoIP Legacy Downloadable Database Retirement

We are retiring our GeoIP Legacy database formats at the end of May 2022. Please see our blog post for more information, including how to migrate to GeoIP2.

Broadband filter for GeoIP accuracy statistics

We updated our GeoIP2 accuracy statistics page to allow filtering by broadband IPs. This builds on top of existing filters that allow you to filter by IPv6 or cellular IPs.

Docker image for GeoIP update program

We published a Docker image for the GeoIP Update program here: https://hub.docker.com/r/maxmindinc/geoipupdate.

GeoNames Monthly Diff Report April 2020

GeoIP2 and GeoLite2 databases incorporate GeoNames geographical data, which is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Monthly updates to GeoNames data are incorporated into our databases as we refresh them. Below you will find a CSV report of these changes for the month of April as they relate to the following fields:

• geoname_id
• country_name
• country_code
• city_name
• subdivision_1_iso_code
• subdivision_2_iso_code

Note that the values for the 'old' and ‘new’ columns for a given field only differ for the field defined in the ‘diff_in’ column.

GeoNames Monthly Diff Report (April 2020)

*There are several subdivision code changes of note in South Africa due to recent ISO updates. These changes will show up in this month's GeoIP2 builds.

GeoIP2 Ruby API supports web service lookups

We have added support for web service lookups to the MaxMind Supported Ruby API (RubyGems, GitHub).

mmdbinspect beta release

We've released mmdbinspect, in beta, which gives GeoIP2 users an easier way to interface with multiple MMDB files. The mmdbinspect tool is a command-line interface built with Go, which allows a user to look up one or more IPs from one or more MMDB databases and receive the output in a parsable JSON format.

Privacy Exclusions API

We've released a Privacy Exclusions API. This API allows you to retrieve a list of IP addresses associated with valid “Do Not Sell” or opt-out of sale requests in accordance with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). You may view this list, along with more information, in your account portal.

Changes to ASN Organization Data

Effective January 21, 2020, many records for the autonomous_system_organization data field in GeoIP2 databases and web services will change from full ISP names to abbreviated codes, due to changes in a third-party data feed that contributes to building this data. We recommend using the isp and organization data fields as they should be more stable over time and reflect the full ISP brand name.

Flagging more networks used by businesses as 'corporate'

Effective January 20, 2020, we will be flagging more Cable/DSL networks used by businesses (i.e. IP networks from ISPs that serve mid-small sized businesses) as Corporate in the GeoIP2 Connection Type database. Previously these types of networks were more often flagged as Cable/DSL.