device, using pretrained models that show that some term is frequently mentioned in a certain location (e.g. "the T" vs "the El" vs. "the subway"). Accuracy is improved by: Data scrubbing to filter out or identify anomalies. Statistical analysis of user submitted data. Utilizing third-party tests conducted by reputable organizations. Errors If geolocation software maps IP addresses associated with an entire county or territory to a particular location, such as the geographic center of the territory, this can cause considerable problems for the people who happen to live there, as law enforcement authorities and others may mistakenly assume any crimes or other misconduct associated with the IP address to originate from that particular location. For example, a farmstead northeast of Potwin, Kansas became the default site of 600 million IP addresses when the Massachusetts-based digital mapping company MaxMind changed the putative geographic center of the contiguous United States from 39.8333333,-98.585522 to 38.0000,-97.0000. Since 2012, a family in Pretoria, South Africa, has been regularly visited by police or angry private citizens who believed their stolen phones were to be found in the family's backyard. This was also the result of geolocation by MaxMind. The company used the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency's coordinates for Pretoria, which pointed to the family's house, to represent IP addresses associated with Pretoria. Privacy A distinction can be made between co-operative and oppositional geolocation. In some cases, it is in the interest of users to be accurately located, for example, so that they can be offered information relevant to their location. In other cases, users prefer not to disclose their location for privacy or other reasons. Technical measures for ensuring anonymity, such as proxy servers, can be used to circumvent restrictions imposed by geolocation software. Some sites detect the use of proxies and anonymizers, and may either block service or provide non-localized content in response. Applications Geolocation technology has been under development only since 1999, and the first patents were granted in 2004. The technology is already widely used in multiple industries, including e-retail, banking, media, telecommunications, education, travel, hospitality, entertainment, health care, online gaming and law enforcement, for preventing online fraud, complying with regulations, managing digital rights and serving targeted marketing content and pricing. Additionally, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has proposed that geolocation software might be leveraged to support 9-1-1 location determination. An IP address or the related unique URL may also be investigated with