Google Maps Traffic data is crowd-sourced through cell-phones’ Google Apps
Google Maps have been able to display traffic conditions, even on small road, for quite a while. How does Google know that? The technology behind it is very interesting.
They use GPS/time data sent back from people using Google Maps Apps on their phones (iPhones, Blackberry, Android, …).
At regular intervals the phone sends to Google its GPS coordinates and with simple calculations they can figure out how long it took to you to move from point A to point B.
If that happens to be on a road, and your speed seems to be the one of a car, they can use the data to estimate the traffic on the road, comparing the current data with historical ones.
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Check this out http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/geolocation/
When you visit a location-aware website, Firefox will ask you if you want to share your location.
If you consent, Firefox gathers information about nearby wireless access points and your computer’s IP address. Then Firefox sends this information to the default geolocation service provider, Google Location Services, to get an estimate of your location. That location estimate is then shared with the requesting website.
If you say that you do not consent, Firefox will not do anything.