Presumably they are using some form of IP address geolocation. If that's as inaccurate in the USA as it is in Australia, they're going to have problems - a lot of the time it puts me in the wrong State.
Sure you could, you could mandate providers in the state give accurate geolocation data with some sort of lookup service and standard. I'm not saying it's a good idea but providers could certainly do it. They provide the physical infrastructure, and I assume have to deal with understanding state boundaries, laws, taxes etc already on a per customer basis when it comes to near state border cases.
I guess people providing wifi near the border could get complex but you could pass that responsibility to whomever owns the physical line and where it terminates. Satellite might be a little difficult.
But I'm not entirely sure we should do it just because it could be done.
"They're going to have a problem" — for whom is that a problem?
Porhub made the best reasonable effort. The ISPs supplied inaccurate data and are in the jurisdiction, but aren't required to supply anything at all AFAICT. Who has a problem?
Mutatis mutandis. ISPs aren't required by law to supply accurate geolocation AFAICT, but neither are you, neither am I, and neither is the company in the building next to your office.
> Porhub made the best reasonable effort. The ISPs supplied inaccurate data and are in the jurisdiction, but aren't required to supply anything at all AFAICT. Who has a problem?
Given the known problems with IP geo-location, I don't think this would count as "the best reasonable effort." Unless you interpret "reasonable" to mean "half-ass."
I've done geoip for a film streaming company, my job included getting the error rate low enough to satisfy the rights owners from whom the company leased content. It was a bit of work, but not really difficult.
If you think Disney's happy with "half-ass", then "half-ass" is what I mean.
Mobile phones cannot be reliably geo-located by IP as that depends on the datacenter serving them, which can easily be out of state. Usually the only half reliable part is the country which doesn't work in Europe when it comes to roaming (it uses the host country regardless the location).
The law is more about intent than technical compliance. Both are important, but the most important thing is demonstrating good faith efforts to comply.
It's a very different world from technology, where technical compliance is more or less the same thing as policy compliance.
It’s much better in the US than in Australia, where there are only a few IP exit points for the whole country. It largely has to do with ISP. My IP resolves to a few feet in front of my house.
My home ISP usually resolves to within 15 miles but my mobile often resolves to NYC which is across two state borders and almost 150 miles away. If I'm looking for something at Home Depot or whatnot it always sets my store location to Manhattan. Probably good for confusing trackers.
