The Good Tech Companies - Debunking the "99.8% Accurate IP Data" Claim

Episode Date: December 16, 2025

This story was originally published on HackerNoon at: https://hackernoon.com/debunking-the-998percent-accurate-ip-data-claim. IPinfo explains why ‘99% accurate IP data’ is misleading and how real accuracy requires ongoing measurement, transparency, and ProbeNet validation. Check more stories related to cybersecurity at: https://hackernoon.com/c/cybersecurity. You can also check exclusive content about #ip-data-accuracy, #ip-geolocation-accuracy, #ipinfo-probenet, #ip-intelligence-reliability, #ip-address-verification, #ip-data-measurement, #ipv4-ipv6-data-validation, #good-company, and more. This story was written by: @ipinfo. Learn more about this writer by checking @ipinfo's about page, and for more stories, please visit hackernoon.com. Most “99%+ accurate” IP geolocation claims are misleading because there’s no shared dataset, no standard methodology, and no way to validate global accuracy across billions of constantly changing IPs. IPinfo rejects the industry’s accuracy theater and instead uses continuous measurement, transparency, and real-world validation to deliver trustworthy, evidence-backed IP data accuracy.

This audio is presented by Hacker Noon, where anyone can learn anything about any technology. Debunking the 99, 8% accurate IP data, claim, by IP info, IP data provider. If you've spent any time looking at IP geolocation providers, you've probably zane accuracy percentages everywhere. 99, 8% accurate, or 97% plus at the city level. These numbers look scientific and they feel reassuring. Do they actually mean anything? Once you dig deeper, something becomes very clear, there's no shared definition, no shared data set, and no shared methodology behind them.

Every provider measures accuracy differently and most don't explain how. So when two companies both claim 99% accuracy, they may not be talking about the same thing at all. IP data accuracy is a huge challenge for several different reasons. We will take a closer look at this problem here and explain how we are retackling it at IP info. The internet is huge, over 4, 29 billion IPV4 addresses, 340 undecillion IPV6 possibilities, IPs moving between networks constantly, residential, mobile, CGNAT, Enterprise, VPN, hosting all behaving completely differently. To validate a global accuracy percentage like

99, 8%, a provider would need verified ground truth for billions of IPs. Across every country, ISP, and network type, collected continuously, with a representative sample, that data set does not exist. So global accuracy claims aren't scientific conclusions, they're simplified headlines that obscure more than they reveal while trying to solve the wrong problem. What's the real problem? Different parts of the internet behave differently. Home broadband, relatively stable. Mobile networks, constantly shifting and shared. CgNAT. Thousands of users behind a single IP. VPN, proxy networks, intentionally hiding their origin, cloud infrastructure, reassigned all the time. Bundling all of this into a single global accuracy number makes things appear more precise

than they are. A provider might consider an IP accurate if it lands in the right country. Another might count within 50 miles as correct and a third one will claim 50 kilometers. All could claim 97% accuracy. Each one of them will mean a different thing. Most accuracy claims in the industry share common challenges, testing limitations, small, non-representative sample sets, self-selected test environments, geographic concentration in specific regions, internal comparisons rather than verified ground truth, vague success criteria, distance thresholds not disclosed, error tolerance unclear, missing context, no published sample sizes, update frequency unstated, methodology details withheld, without transparency about how these numbers, numbers are derived, a 99% accuracy claim becomes impossible to evaluate meaningfully. What accuracy claims actually look like in the IP data industry? Here's what some of the players publicly claim today, looks impressive. And if you're looking to buy IP data, this could be reassuring if you don't look closely

at the fine print. The accuracy percentages are published, but they're explicitly not guaranteed. MaxMind offers an interactive accuracy comparison tool by country with an important disclaimer. due to the nature of geolocation technology and other factors beyond our control, we cannot guarantee any specific future accuracy level. IP2 location also publishes a list of accuracy percentages by country and adds details on methodology like sample sizes of hundreds to thousands per country, threshold of less than 50 miles, degradation warning of 1 to 5 percent per month for outdated data. Why does the industry keep doing this? If these accuracy claims are so problematic,

Why do providers keep making them? The answer reveals how the problem perpetuates itself. Buyers ask for the numbers. Companies that don't provide a number get eliminated from consideration, even when a number would be meaningless. Competitive pressure creates an arms race. Once one provider claims 99% accurate, competitors feel pressured to claim 99.5%, even when comparing methodologies would be impossible. The percentages keep climbing while becoming less meaningful. Information asymmetry works in the provider's favor. Most buyers aren't IP geolocation experts and the complexity involved in IP data accuracy is hard to explain. Most buyers can't evaluate methodology, sample sizes, or testing approaches. Providers know a confident 99-8% claim

looks more impressive than explaining why a single number is misleading. It's become industry standard. Once everyone publishes accuracy percentages, not publishing one makes you look like you're hiding something, even when the opposite is true. The result? A cycle where buyers demand accuracy claims. Providers supply them, with disclaimers buried in fine print. Numbers get compared without context. Actual accuracy quality becomes secondary. The alternative to accuracy theater. So what's the alternative? At IP info, we are replacing the single percentage with something more useful, a verification system anyone can inspect. We avoid promoting a global accuracy percentage, not because we don't measure accuracy, we do, constantly, we are obsessed with

it, but because a single number can't capture the size, complexity, and diversity of the internet. We built accuracy as a living system that is the basis of everything we do, guiding the decisions and investments we make as a company. Probe Net Internet Measurement Platform Real-world Internet Signals, Routing, latency, movement, service behavior, from thousands of points of presence. Multisource data ingestion. Routing tables, RIR records, hosting footprints, infrastructure signals, residential, mobile indicators, device data, dozens of independent sources. Behavioral analysis. Understanding how IPs change over time. ASN shifts, stability, movement patterns, rotation, proxy, CGNAT behavior. Continuous anomaly detection. When the signals disagree, we investigate

and correct. Daily data refresh. Updates flow continuously and data is updated daily, always. Transparent validation tools. Tools like our pingable IP finder used together with something like ping. SX, ping allow anyone to test IP geolocation and or accuracy page examples let anyone inspect real probe net measurements when we disagree with other IP data providers. We also display trace route measurements in our ASN pages and are planning on launching new tools in Wastow help you validate our data. A dedicated research program focused on understanding how the internet behaves and innovating around the hardest accuracy challenges. In short, accuracy isn't a static number for us, it's an ongoing commitment.

How to evaluate any accuracy claim? When evaluating any accuracy claim, ask these questions. 1. How was this measured? 2. What counted as correct? 3. What types of IPs were included? 4. How often is the data updated? 5. public? If a provider can't answer these questions clearly, their accuracy percentage can't be

understood, let alone trusted. Accuracy isn't a number, it's a commitment. The internet is too complex, too dynamic, and too diverse for any provider to credibly claim global, uniform accuracy. Real accuracy isn't something you announce once. It's something you prove continuously. At IP info, our focus e-simple. We do the hard work, provide the evidence and let anyone verify it. That's not just what accuracy should look like, it's what accountability looks like. Thank you for listening to this Hackernoon story, read by artificial intelligence. Visit hackernoon.com to read, write, learn and publish.