IP Geolocation Update#

Lee Howard (presenting the IAB workshop report)

• Why: The IAB just ran a dedicated workshop because IP geolocation is breaking under CGNAT, satellite networks, and privacy proxies — and the remediation path runs through RPKI-signed geofeeds (RFC 9632), tying into the routing-PKI world the PM already follows.
• What: A report on the IAB's December 2025 IP Geolocation Workshop (30 accepted submissions, 67 participants): why geolocation is used (CDN/edge selection, content licensing, fraud, compliance), current mechanisms (RFC 8805 CSV geofeeds plus RFC 9632 RPKI-based discovery and authentication), and the gaps: no ontology for what a location claim even means (user vs. egress vs. infrastructure vs. jurisdiction); >95% accuracy at country level but sharp degradation at city/coordinate level; CGNAT/mobile/satellite mapping users to gateway locations; "digital sinkholes"; stale data persisting after IPv4 block transfers; no feedback loop for ISPs to correct third-party databases; and privacy tension (IP-as-PII, VPN/proxy interactions).
• How: Workshop-report format — use cases, current mechanisms, gaps, and future directions (richer geofeed expressiveness; new mechanisms that don't rely on implicit signals, e.g., authenticated and consent-based HTTP headers) — intended to seed future IETF/IRTF work.
• Where applicable: Anyone whose services, compliance, or CDN/edge logic depend on IP geolocation, and operators who should be publishing accurate geofeeds. This is direction-setting standardization content, not deployable tech today.