Amazon Web Services announced the general availability of Amazon Location Service which makes it easier and more cost-effective for customers to add location functionality to their apps without putting user privacy or data security at risk.
Amazon Location Service allows customers to embed location functionality in their applications by using data from location-based service (LBS) providers Esri and HERE Technologies. This way the customers can provide maps, points of interest, geocoding, route planning, geofencing, or asset tracking. The cost of Amazon Location Service is ten times lower than the cost of the most common LBS providers, which customers can pay only depending on the number of user requests, assets tracked or devices managed.
Location data has become significantly important for companies thanks to the growth of connected devices in the world today. However, acquiring and keeping this kind of data is somewhat tricky for companies due to privacy and security compromises, cost-prohibitive pricing and a difficult integration process. Some LBS providers have licensing terms that give the LBS provider the rights to do what they like with a customer’s location data – they can access, use and commercialise it in various ways. On top of that, the pricing of LBS providers is often unaffordable for customers to use location functionality in all of the ways a customer may want.
Amazon Location Service removes the complexity of adding location functionality to an application by providing a single, managed service that lets customers control what access providers have to their confidential data, cost-effectively implement location-based features, and easily integrate data from proved LBS providers. What’s more, the Amazon Location Service licensing terms do not grant Amazon or third parties the rights to sell or use a customer’s location data for advertising. With build-in tracking and geofencing capabilities that the service offers, customers do not need to spend resources building their own solutions
Bill Vass, VP of Technology, AWS, said:
“Our customers are excited to use location data to take advantage of the explosion of connected devices available today.
With built-in support for tracking and geofencing and a number of use cases that are as low as 1/10th the cost of the most common LBS providers, Amazon Location Service is pretty compelling for any company that wants to bring location functionality to their application using a fully managed AWS service built with the highest standards for privacy and data security.”
Companies that are already leveraging Amazon Location Service include Azit, Command Alkon, CoolStays, and PostNL.
