MaxMind
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Data analytics, Fraud prevention |
| Founded | 2002 |
| Founder | Thomas "TJ" Mather |
| Headquarters | Malden, Massachusetts , United States |
| Products | GeoIP, minFraud |
MaxMind, Inc. is a data analytics firm located in Massachusetts that specializes in providing IP address location information and fraud prevention solutions.
History
Established in 2002 by Thomas "TJ" Mather and operating out of Malden, Massachusetts, MaxMind offers its IP geolocation services and associated data under the GeoIP brand. The company introduced minFraud in 2004, a service designed to analyze transaction risks to aid in combating fraud.
A significant technical issue occurred when a farm near Potwin, Kansas became the default point for 600 million IP addresses following a change by a digital mapping firm that adjusted the official geographic center of the contiguous United States from to . Many of these IP addresses, often connected to alleged criminal or malicious activities, were linked to this Kansas property through MaxMind’s database. As a result, the property owners were frequently contacted or visited by law enforcement and others regarding incidents associated with these IPs. The owners initiated legal action against MaxMind. To address the problem, MaxMind moved the default IP location to a central spot within a Kansas lake and resolved the dispute through alternative dispute resolution in September 2017.