Re: [geolocation-sensor] Support geolocation (especially geofencing) in the "background" (#22)

> And if there's no easy way for user agents to implement clear notification of per-site background tracking, it probably won't end up being implemented. It's not enough for "Safari is using your location", because that would be too vague if there are more than one sites pulling your background data.

If the OS reports “Safari is using GPS”, and Safari reports with a continuous notification that reads something like this:

> **one9\.is** and **example\.com** are accessing GPS.  
> \[Tap to review.\]

that's *perfectly great*, IMO.

If the user has, for some reason, a use-case that actually involves opening, granting *continuous* location to, and backgrounding-while-running too many websites to *fit* in a notification, I don't see any issue at all with swapping that to a notification like,

> **Many sites** are accessing GPS \(oldest: **one9\.is**; latest: **example\.com**\).  
> \[Tap to review.\]

The only "use"-case I can imagine where [my proposed user-agent-driven continuous-notification model](https://github.com/w3c/geolocation-sensor/issues/22#issuecomment-859977345) would be remotely awkward is geofencing \(say that the Target website requests GPS to "find the nearest store" but then *retains* continuous access afterwards in order to [jack up online prices whenever you're in a parking lot](https://www.kare11.com/article/money/consumer/the-target-app-price-switch-what-you-need-to-know/89-9ef4106a-895d-4522-8a00-c15cff0a0514)\) — but I think that's more of an argument **against geofencing** than an argument against user-agent responsibility for reporting site-granularity of access.

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Received on Thursday, 6 November 2025 00:24:50 UTC