On Monday Google unveiled its latest efforts in its quest for local relevance by announcing its new mobile “News Near You” feature for smartphones.
As the name indicates, the new capability attempts to bring Google News users the latest from their surrounding location on their mobile search page.
Location-based news is not exactly new for Google, which launched a local news service back in in 2008, for just about any city, state or country in the world. But the search engine giant explains that it is doing its new local search that little bit differently, “analyzing every word in every story to understand what location the news is about and where the source is located.”
The service, currently available to Android and iPhone users, launches from the self-same Google News URL – news.google.com – with a pop up now asking users to enter their location details. If a user accepts, Google will then proceed to bring up news relevant to the person’s location in a new “News Near You” section at the bottom of the homepage.
Users can also apparently disable the feature at any time using their mobile browser settings. This will be a comfort to many who were recently shaken by the Google and Apple location tracking scandal which saw executives having to testify before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee on Capitol Hill.
Google told that subcommittee that all location data it collects is anonymous and deleted after just one week.
“News Near You” is currently only available in the U.S. English edition of Google News.
