Geobytes was one of the first companies to build a global IP address location database by overlaying geographic user data on to a map of the internet's infrastructure.
[citation needed] Adrian McElligott thought of mapping the Internet and targeted adverts whilst promoting an email notification tool that he had developed.
The data used to compile the company's database is gathered from a large number of websites that require users to enter their location information.
The GeoNetMap system does not use WHOIS data, DNS reverse-lookups or cookies; it relies totally on its own proprietary IP address location database.
The software uses a system that uses a combination of lower and upper case letters to encode email addresses with a unique key.
The concept is that CaseKeys software is installed on either the client PC or the mail server which allows every message – both incoming and outgoing to be intercepted and processed.
In the other direction, incoming messages are scanned for any CaseKey-encoded instances of the protected user's email address, with the recovered CaseKey codes being authenticated against the list of those previously issued.