[Edit: the answer to this is actually very simple. I’d been focusing so much on the various mobile frameworks that I forgot about the obvious one: it’s my source IP. There are services out there that take your IP address and, based on service provider information, turn it into a location. The same mechanism is going to be available whether you are using your browser – and where you will see commonly see location specific ads – or if you’re using an app.]

OK, maybe not the most thrilling of titles, but I’ve been interested in location services pretty much since I started developing for iOS, and something happened this morning while using the Twitter app that piqued my interest.

I followed a link to a site, which popped up an embedded browser – so a UIWebView. At the bottom of the article, amid the usual rubbish, was an link to another site telling me how a millionaire in my named home town was earning an unlikely amount working from home.

The thing is that in my Location Services settings, I have the Twitter app set to ‘never’. There are a couple of other possible candidates. I was wondering if the UIWebView was inheriting some settings from Safari, but I have the Safari Websites setting on ‘never’. Also, the call to start the Location Manager happens in the calling app – so the corresponding privacy setting should be in the context of that app.

Looking at the other System Settings under Locations Services, there’s one other candidate: iAds. I’ve not used this in my own apps, but I’ve just checked: they are views embedded in native apps, not in UIWebViews. And anyway, I have the setting disabled.

There are a few other System Settings that I have set to ‘on’, such as WiFi Networking and Location-Based alerts, none of which should have anything to do with the Twitter app.

So what’s going on? Wild conspiracy theories aside, I can’t understand how the app could be getting my location when the primary privacy setting for the app is ‘never’.