Write your address on this dotted line, attach a photocopy of your driver’s licence, and sign in triplicate plzkthxbi.
Figuring out where someone is sitting when they access your site is not hard. You can even get the database for free. So why is it that whenever I visit any page that returns local information, I find myself typing in my city or zip code? I get that the database might not always be right, and if I’m behind an anonymizer this method is right out, but for the most part, it would be a little thing that silently made your day slightly easier.
December 4th, 2007 at 8:05 am
My guess is: To reduce error.
Too many people access the web from too many different places. I know that I use the internet: at home (where the info pulled would be correct), at work, at friend’s homes, at my parent’s homes, at my g/f’s home, at the internet cafe’. And that’s just when I’m not traveling on business.
Given how many people use computers while they’re at work, having the address field auto-populated by IP is just asking for problems. One of the first things I learned about making websites is this: If you auto-fill any piece of data on a form, a sizable percentage of your users aren’t going to pay attention to it, and they’re going to submit the wrong data.
I know that it’s a sci-fi nightmare, but part of me is looking forward to the day that I can just swipe a card in my keyboard’s cardreader and have my information auto-submitted. Ah, convenience.