Overview
- Google has rolled out a new permission prompt in Chrome for Android that lets people choose Precise or Approximate location when a site requests their position.
- Picking Approximate shares a neighborhood-level area instead of exact GPS coordinates, while users can still grant precise location for tasks like delivery orders or finding the nearest ATM.
- Google says desktop Chrome will gain the same approximate-location option in the coming months.
- New web APIs are planned so developers can request approximate location by default or signal when a feature truly needs precise data, with guidance to avoid asking for more than necessary.
- This browser update tracks with recent Android privacy work, including app-level approximate location since Android 12 and Android 17 changes like a one‑time location button, refreshed prompts, and a stronger algorithm for obscuring locations in sparsely populated areas.