23 ms·

Tell HN: Google is correlating location data to your IP

• dmantis 4y ago
  I actually like that I see ads in other languages on youtube, based on VPN location. So instead of manipulative junk I receive some funny blahblahblah videos I don't have idea what about and not putting junk in my subconscious.
• joshxyz 4y ago
  welcome to the matrix. yes it's a known fact, and no there's no way around it.
• nashashmi 4y ago
  This might be the use of the VPN tells them to identify VPN users and get their "real" location. Lots of people may be using VPNs from Mexico. So when they see a user that has used VPN, they discard their fake IP address data and use the one they suspect is true.
  • wereallterrrist 4y ago
    Its my tailscale exit node, its not a public vpn. Sigh, i guess i wasnt clear enough but i didnt pull the conclusion out of my rear. Days later, my stationary gaming PC still thinks its in fking Mexico.
• alamortsubite 4y ago
  Are you sure there isn't a mix-up with your VPN? I travel a lot internationally and never experienced anything like this.
  • wereallterrrist 4y ago
    I mean, I'm sitting in my apartment in Seattle and Google says I'm in Quintanna Roo. Given that I don't have any devices left in Mexico, I'm not really sure what else could be happening. to be clear: my VPN is Tailscale configured to use an exit node running out of the apartment I'm currently sitting in.
    • alamortsubite 4y ago
      What kind of internet connection you have in Seattle?
      • wereallterrrist 4y ago
        Astound/Wave Broadband. From whatismyip.com: My Public IPv4 is: 198.244.xx.yy My Public IPv6 is: 2604:4080:redact My IP Location is: Seattle, WA US My ISP is: Wave Broadband
    • pifm_guy 4y ago
      > Google says I'm in Quintanna Roo This is at the bottom of the Google search results page on mobile right? If so, that location is based on signals from a bunch of places. The logic takes as input: * Location history in your Google account (if enabled) * IP address location lookup from the most recent request (if sufficiently accurate) * HTML5 location API response from previous requests to Google search on your account (since the html5 location API is quite slow, and you don't want to wait 30 seconds for search results). My guess is you have location history disabled. And you have the html5 location API disabled. And your Seattle IP address doesn't resolve to a very precise location (so is rejected). So the last fallback is the last known location for you, which was probably the hotel WiFi in Mexico, which probably did have a precise geocode associated. If you want to fix that, you can set a manual location IIRC, or you can enable some other location source.
• pmontra 4y ago
  Are all those devices logged in into your account? Maybe Google thinks you're Mexican because of your recent stay in Mexico and serves you content in Spanish. I'd check the language settings of the search engine, Google News, Android or iOS apps, the content of cookies in the browser, etc.
  • withinboredom 4y ago
    It won’t matter. I went to Portugal for 5 days once. All my preferences are set to English. I randomly get Portugese results and my maps randomly changes to Portugese. It got worse when they moved it from the maps.google domain. The only way to fix it is to not be logged in.
• hipsterstal1n 4y ago
  > I can't believe Google is doing this Have you been living under a rock?
  • wereallterrrist 4y ago
    No, I'm pretty careful about the information that I give to Google. The only Google app on my phone with access to my location is Google Maps. To me, it's absolutely news that Google Maps data can taint my entire IP address across all Google services. Ultimately, sure, great, I realize Google is going to Google, but this is absolutely not something I've seen discussed previously.
    • landemva 4y ago
      > taint my entire IP address across all Google services. When in .mx your cell phone location was on, and you used apps like Google maps at least partially through the house/hotel wifi which you tunneled to exit in USA? If so, that tied the "trusted" phone location to the IP you used to exit traffic in USA.
• yarg 4y ago
  Every single advertising company is exploiting every single side channel that they can. This should not surprise you.
  • zo1 4y ago
    It's getting very serious. I created an fresh anon Instagram account using a cellphone number that I used with FB. And voila, someone I know is a recommended for me to follow on Instagram. They have no shame. And no one is holding them accountable even with proof.
    • SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
      For privacy focused people that's a bad thing, for everyone else that's a feature. You gave meta that phone number, meta is going to use that phone number with all of meta's products. Not saying that's good, just saying that's a thing that makes sense.
    • zdragnar 4y ago
      Instagram and FB are both owned by meta. Is it really any surprise that they share data?
  • wereallterrrist 4y ago
    Sure. And in this case, they're showing me irrelevant ads, shopping results I can't use and more. It's not surprising me, it's baffling me because it's just stupid to do this.
    • yieldcrv 4y ago
      Is it? You haven't travelled to a non-English place in ten years to not notice this, and they're just going to be wrong with targeting you for a few weeks.
    • jokethrowaway 4y ago
      Large rich companies screw up way more than small ones. Nobody cares, the business is making 10x what it would need to survive. Worst case scenario they still have their reputation (I still remember conversations before buying Azure: "it's Microsoft, it can't be that bad"...) A small company either does things right or eventually gets destroyed.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• deleted 4y ago
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• mosajjal 4y ago
  it's not just ads, it affects the entire Google Cloud infrastructure. I've seen this in some proxy servers too. Wondering if this is mostly related to location data or a persistent cookie and/or tracker that's designed to detect VPN activity.
• skybrian 4y ago
  Using IP addresses to infer approximate location is very common, but advertisers can do it other ways. Maybe Microsoft does something different? Getting it wrong in this way is rather puzzling, but it's unlikely that anyone here is going to be able to debug it without a whole lot more information about your computers. Maybe there are cookies you can delete?
  • wereallterrrist 4y ago
    I can open private browsing on my laptop, and Google Shopping shows me Seattle results. But again, my gaming PC, which was offline in my apartment in Seattle, has been showing me Mexico/Spanish results in Edge. And my TV, which sits in my apartment in Seattle, is inundated with Spanish ads. I'm starting to suspect that different Google properties are using different signals, too, which makes this extra confusing. It's really as if YouTube has modified it's profile of me and said "oh, since he was in Mexico for 2 weeks, he must speak Spanish now" the same way they *infuriatingly* insist on switching my results to Spanish whenever I first landed (which literally was why I started using the VPN). It's a kafka-esque nightmare of them trying to be smart and absolutely making things harder.
    • alamortsubite 4y ago
      Consider that Google might know best here, and it's high time for you to pick up Spanish. J/K. Have you tried all the stupid stuff like clearing your cache and logging out and back in?
      • wereallterrrist 4y ago
        Again, edge is running on my gaming PC that has never once left Seattle. It clears cookies on exit. When i use google on it, it says im in mexico. Idk why everyone is so gung-ho to disbelieve me. Theres NO EXPLANATION for what im seeing other than Google keeping a hint for my IP and it being currently set to "being in Mexico".
• freitasm 4y ago
  Not you IP address but your router/access point's MAC address and been doing it for many years. For example, I receive quite a few devices for reviews, and I mostly give things away after using those. Many years ago, I gave a friend in another city a router. For a few weeks his computer and other devices reported his location as being my city instead of his. It took a couple of weeks for Google services to catch up. Google logs your current location and the MAC address of any access point visible to your phone. In your case, if you used your phone via the VPN for more than a few hours, Google associates that MAC address with the finer location from your phone's GPS. It may not link that data to your account, but it uses it to help getting a GPS location. If you live in a location with low traffic/human density then it may take longer for Google to change it back. This information is also used for a GPS cold start. Actual GPS takes a few moments to get a fix, even more if indoors. A GPS get a fix faster if you are using it close to where it was last used, or how fresh the stored almanac data is, otherwise it may not find expected satellites in certain locations in the sky. While a fix is not available phone GPS uses any visible MAC address to determine its coarse location. On laptops and desktops with no GPS, browsers will use this access point data to set a location - IP addresses databases are not up to date enough and sometimes they are linked to the ISP office address and not to specific towns and cities and certainly not to a specific address.
  • arthurcolle 4y ago
    How do they get mac address from HTTP requests?
    • WookieRushing 4y ago
      They can get it from your android phone or from chrome if you’re running it
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    • pxeboot 4y ago
      They don't. But Chrome, Google Play Services and other popular apps likely share this data frequently.
• orbital-decay 4y ago
  It sounds like a leaky tunnel. Also, is it your private tunnel? I think it also looks at the language settings of the bulk of users coming from that IP address. As an example, try using any public VPN hosted in a German datacenter, with a German IP address on a German AS, but created by Iranians (either as help to circumvent the crackdown or as a honeypot; they routinely post these en masse on Telegram), and you'll be detected as Iranian and start getting results in Farsi. (don't try it actually, or at least use precautions and while not logged in)
• AlbertCory 4y ago
  As other people have said in exhaustive detail: where you are comes from a lot of signals other than your IP address at the VPN end of your VPN. Off the top of my head: you connected to some cell tower in Mexico. Go to google.com/history and clear out all history from all services. Go to YouTube and do the same. Clear everything from your browsers, meaning you have to log in again. If it's allowed, return the phone to its default state. Just for good measure, power the phone off, take the battery out, wait an hour, put the battery back in, and power back up again (this part is cargo-cult, I know). There are probably even more sanitary measures I'm missing here.
  • wereallterrrist 4y ago
    It happens on my unsigned in TV that has been sitting in Seattle for a year. I'm really not an idiot. Idk what else to say.
  • withinboredom 4y ago
    I’ve tried everything but I can’t stop my google maps from randomly changing to Portugese. I went there for 5 days, years ago. I always change it back to English. It’s so frustrating.
    • netsharc 4y ago
      I wonder which manager thought that's what the users want.. "Let's see, this user of ours has lived in the US for the last 10 years, he's never read any page in Portuguese, and he often uses Google Translate to translate Portuguese texts. But wait, he's currently in Portugal, he definitely wants us to be helpful and change the UI to Portuguese!". In the same vein, I was holidaying overseas. I wanted to book a hotel back home for a ski weekend after I return. Despite Maps knowing my home address and probably a lot of other info (like my credit card billing address), it was showing the hotel prices for in the foreign currency...
• grecy 4y ago
  > I just wish I could make this known to Google's advertisers. Are they aware that when I travel, they're pay to show me ads that I can't understand? I live in Canada, but came to Australia for an extended period to visit family. I'd been in Australia, using wifi and a local Aussie SIM for over 6 months and Facebook and google were still showing me ads for Canadian things. I wonder if people paying for FB and Google ads know they're being shown to people outside the country like that. I'd be mad if I were paying for that.
• bouncycastle 4y ago
  I recently bought a brand new pair of golf shoes from a physical store. I did not even search for them or look at any golf shoes online. The next day, I got Google ads served for the same brand of shoes I bought... Coincidence? Seemed very creepy. I know they sometimes do "re-tageting", but in this case I am sure I didn't look at any stores online. Only the fact that I physically visited a store with my tracking devi... errr i mean "phone", in my pocket...
  • camgunz 4y ago
    All your purchases are sold to marketing firms by your bank.
  • kevinventullo 4y ago
    I would guess it is linked to a membership with the store or a credit card used for purchase.
    • bouncycastle 4y ago
      Omg, yes!
  • executive 4y ago
    credit card data
  • x0x0 4y ago
    FB (and to a lesser extent google) allow targeting via phone numbers, emails, and addresses. This [1] shows the attributes Facebook Custom Audiences allows match on, and it includes email, phone, first/last name, address, dob, and age. So if any of those were shared with the store, they can upload them to FB (and very similar to Google) to show you ads. [1] https://www.facebook.com/business/help/2082575038703844?id=2469097953376494 https://www.facebook.com/business/help/2082575038703844?id=2...
    • bouncycastle 4y ago
      They know everything.. And yet on top of this, Google is still nagging me to add my DOB to my account...
• kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
  I have location tracking disabled on my Android phone and moved to a different state over a year ago but they still show my old home and work pips on the map. However, the articles in the Google Assistant pane are now nearly all relevant to my current location but they gradually transitioned from the old regional news over many months. This is one of the few places where I leak detailed fingerprint data with unfiltered web browsing. Google is clearly collecting its tracking from a variety of sources but integrates it sporadically.
• eukara 4y ago
  I'm sorry that you were oblivious to this, but their job is to track and monetize anything they can unless it's explicitly outlawed. Even then, Alphabet breaks the rules (namely of the EU) all the time as they seem to be content with paying fines on a regular basis. https://www.wired.com/story/eu-hits-google-third-billion-dollar-fine-so-what/ https://www.wired.com/story/eu-hits-google-third-billion-dol...
  • jacquesm 4y ago
    The EU should add a zero to their fines. That will surely get some attention.
    • trimethylpurine 4y ago
      If they added a zero then Google would stop and then they couldn't fine them anymore. It seems you mistakenly thought that punishment was meant to dissuade bad actors. That's not how government works. Punishment is meant for politicians to profit from bad actors.
    • eternityforest 4y ago
      Could Google or anyone else still provide the service they do without tracking? Would it be profitable enough to keep doing it? What would actually happen for users if they added a zero? Would poor people be SOL if they want high quality maps?
      • jacquesm 4y ago
        Of course they could. But it's an arms race and if one party breaks the pact it would start all over again.
      • justsomehnguy 4y ago
        Somehow ad networks worked fine before Android and Chrome supplying everything they can to the company.
        • 4y ago
• zqf11 4y ago
  Yes I fucking hate that. Google knows where I am and all searches take into account my location and I can't change it. If I change IPs, it's a matter of days before they find out. I think they do it using physical geolocation (gps, wifi routers nearby) from Android phones connected to my wifi network.
  • alwayslikethis 4y ago
    You can mitigate it greatly though. Never log in at your home without vpn, especially don't log in on your devices. Clear cookies at the end of session when logging in on your browser.
• Kwpolska 4y ago
  Google’s IP geolocation database can sometimes be weird and not match what other providers think. One day, Google decided that I’m in the Netherlands (I’m not, I’ve never been there, and I haven’t used a VPN). This affected ads and displayed prices in a few random places, but then it went to normal.
• yieldcrv 4y ago
  Have you not been out of the country in the last decade? This is both expected and known and waaaay deeper than what you think. The ad brokers - of which there are thousands - are tracking you and sharing information collected between different apps to each other. Each app has several analytics packages that send this data. Any ad server can get this from an analytics package, or from another ad broker. Many ad brokers function as every other component in this web too. Just like Google has both Google Analytics, an ad serving platform, an ad brokering platform and ability to get data from other ad brokers, all alongside the ability to directly track you like you imagine. But probability wise, it’s not “Google tracking you”, its everyone.
• than3 4y ago
  Google uses the whole bag of tricks to correlate your location and other personal information, they are actively engaging in a surveillance system which previous Stasi members (yes Eastern Germany) have described as a wet dream. That can include any number of avenues, including from implants they've put on devices you may carry. For example, even if you don't have location services on, depending on the model it will keep the last X number of AP points and cell towers that came into range, and that information may be used to correlate your location regardless of if the feature was turned on or off by you. I'm pretty sure intermediate cell towers sell some of this information to Accurint which is where most governments agencies go for information when not Palantir. Google has a lot of ad fraud because of their pernicious use of surveillance may indicate you fall within a demographic to their ad companies that you do not, but they are the only marketshare in town for ad providers. No there isn't a way to game the system in any way, you have no control over their algorithms, or even your own hardware. You may also notice that if you talk about a specific thing hitting the same keywords over and over within a few minutes, within range of one of those devices all the ads switch to that thing. Like a purple dog collar. Technically that's wiretapping, and should be illegal, but no ones holding them to account because someones decided its not illegal if an algorithm does it? For anyone not aware of the tech involved in this, this may seem like a tinfoil hat like response invoking the I can't believe it response. That's fine, but it is happening regardless of people thinking those thoughts, and you have no agency to change or stop it which was by design. If you are unhappy with that, the only option is to become an expert in the technology, or bury your head in the sand. The thing that most people don't get about privacy is, privacy is your future. If you give up your privacy, you are giving up your future. Whatever that may be, its what you are trading when you use anything made by companies involved in this despicable and evil trade. You become a victim to anyone who pays to have access to that information or some derivative of it, and its done in a subtle way that you don't concretely know when that's been used against you or when its happening. Those companies won't give you enough information to make an informed decision about it because they are deceitful and malevolent by design and have used leveraged buyouts to consolidate that power in a global game of monopoly, and most likely received funds from people within the government to set this up in the first place. They have gotten where they are now at by stripping agency, and voice, and corrupting and subverting the areas they would normally be held to account. So the only real alternative without specialized knowledge is to become a luddite and not engage in society (in the US). This mostly because everything is being forced through compulsion into the online space without proper safeguards, you have companies who are acting as arms of government without government oversight, which is also by design. Most people can't become a specialist at tech overnight, and the people that do go the luddite route are ostracized, and have less opportunities for anything that falls in the social spectrum. Many people do not realize just how bad things have gotten because they rely on institutions to get their news, such as from the Sinclair's of the world. If you have a chance look at the deadspin Sinclair video. That was made years ago, and despite that and other issues, they were still authorized for further mergers to consolidate their business. The reason the world is getting so crazy and going off the rails is because these 'evil' people have been allowed to continue this attack on agency and speech without restriction, and the people responsible for not taking action against these companies are the same people we voted into office but more appropriately were tweedism'ed into office without a real choice by us. When you look at social media stuff, you always have to wonder if the people responding are real, most of the time if the post has an algorithmic negative sentiment then you'll be downvoted, not by real people but by bots. To de-amplify your voice. The same goes for news, to amplify your engagement. If you've read any history, you would understand we have very dark times ahead of us, and the previous generation who came to power in the 90s, will have a legacy of the generation that failed in every area that counted because they sacrificed their childrens future for short term goods which were then stolen from them under the same framework they supported.
• jokethrowaway 4y ago
  Not the worst that can happen from travelling. At least now you can filter out everything that's in Spanish without having to second guess whether it's an ad or not. I logged into the WiFi of a Russian airport once and from that day I had Russian spam in my email, fake invites on Google calendar, attempt to break into my Shopify account and others (probably using data from breaches)
• oefrha 4y ago
  For a very long time Google thought my Newark, NJ IP address was in UAE, where I’ve never been to. Most other websites serving a local version (e.g. airlines) based on GeoIP got it right, but a few also decided I was in UAE; I don’t recall which ones. I submitted Google’s IP location correction form[1] and it was fixed months later. Google’s GeoIP database is weird. [1] https://support.google.com/websearch/workflow/9308722?hl=en https://support.google.com/websearch/workflow/9308722?hl=en
• bioemerl 4y ago
  Oh yeah, something I've noticed is that I have Spanish neighbors and I occasionally get Spanish YouTube ads
• lupire 4y ago
  Google changes the UI language in its first party apps based on IP, which is a much bigger deal than advertisers chosing to send Spanish ads to people who spend time in Spanish language countries.
  • realusername 4y ago
    They still haven't understood that there's multilingual countries and immigration is a thing, I wonder how long it's going to take then to fix this annoying bug, this issue has been there forever.
    • jen20 4y ago
      Indeed - one of the more annoying things for me is Google and friends giving me UK-centric results because my browser language is set to en-GB despite being logged in, with a US billing address and a US IP address. United Airlines is actually the worst offender for this - they constantly revert pricing to GBP. They somehow manage to know which home airport to set though.
  • lucb1e 4y ago
    Not just that, I also constantly get German Wikipedia articles as top result when my browser and OS are set to English. If it were only the UI, that would be better because I know the buttons by heart already (not a given for every user, of course). I've always wondered what I'm supposed to do when on holiday in a country with a different script that I can't make heads or tails of. I'll have to practice my japanese or amharic then I guess? The other extreme is DDG which will try to find English results for a query that very clearly uses Dutch words, matching pages that don't have those words on them rather than bringing up the Dutch page that contains all of the keywords.
    • fsflover 4y ago
      With DDG, you can switch the location slider on, and it seems to use your IP then.
• hejaodbsidndbd 4y ago
  They’ve been doing this for probably twenty years. It is not new.
• Denatonium 4y ago
  You're absolutely right; I've operated a site-to-site VPN tunnel between two locations (tunnel endpoints were on the routers, and both peers were sharing an public IP address). After a while, Google would associate the IP address of the local side of the tunnel with the location of the remote side of the tunnel. I assume this is from Android devices connecting to the network on the remote side, being geolocated by Google Play Services, and Google tying this location with the IP address.
• lucb1e 4y ago
  A few years ago someone did a data export from linkedin and received a CD, I think either in the early days of GDPR or maybe during the predecessor (NL: WBP) which was effectively the same except no fines. One of the takeaways there was that linkedin suggests users to each other that share an IP address. I have also noticed that youtube on tv will suggest things that someone in the household watched on the phone. Whether it's truly by IP address or by some other proximity proxy, in the end the answer is the same: yes, adtech firms use correlations, such as your IP address. It sounds like you're one of today's lucky ten thousand. https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/
  • sitkack 4y ago
    I have seen other people get recommendation in YT solely based on IP, which frankly should never, ever happen or be allowed.
• barbazoo 4y ago
  Genuine question. Does Apple just not do these things? Is my privacy *actually* protected better with an iphone? I still have to use Google Mail for work and occasionally use Google Maps to find things.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • flatiron 4y ago
    Apple makes their money on their products and not your data. Google is “free” because it makes its money off your data.
    • Operative0198 4y ago
      This position is outdated. Apple now makes (some) money from your data with advertisements.
  • cavisne 4y ago
    Google Maps on iOS asks to track your location in the background by default. Apple tracks your location as long as Location Services is turned on.
    • alwayslikethis 4y ago
      You can't truly turn off location on iPhone. Find My iPhone still works even if you, which demonstrate that your location is still going to them. In fact even if you turn the phone off, it still has bluetooth on, acting like Airtags.
  • dwrodri 4y ago
    Apple does this, but to a lesser extent. I think the important distinction is in the business reasons that Apple and Google collect data. When Google collects data on you, it's mainly so they can let other companies interact with you (ads), and those companies pay Google so that Google makes money. When Apple collects data on you, it's mainly so that Apple can interact with you, and get you to pay Apple so that Apple makes money. The existence of that third party in Google's motive (i.e., advertisers) incentivizes Google to collect data more aggressively, because as long as the people using Google are "happy enough" to not leave the platform, Google stands to benefit from collecting more data for advertisers. And "advertisers" isn't a well-defined demographic. Apple's cost-benefit analysis when it comes to collecting user data is much ore clear-cut. If they can't tie data they're collecting to more revenue, there's not as much incentive for them to collect that data. In my opinion, that's why the reporting earlier this year about Apple's pivot towards advertising is such a big deal[1]. It completely changes the relationship it's users have with the company. 1: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-08-14/apple-aapl-set-to-expand-advertising-bringing-ads-to-maps-tv-and-books-apps-l6tdqqmg https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-08-14/apple-...
• Ctyra 4y ago
  I am facing a different tyranny from Google. I just moved to US from a different country. I am not able to install any US based apps as Google play store has my original country tied in. Google knows I am in the US, but they want me to give a payment instrument (Paypal, or Credit card) before they allow me to update the country.
  • KomoD 4y ago
    Yes, they use your card to verify you are actually living in the country, and not just spoofing. You either have to give them your card or you simply make another google account.
  • alwayslikethis 4y ago
    Use an alternative app store, like Aurora which allows you to access Play Store anonymously, or just download from an apk hosting site (apkpure or similar). For your privacy, just log out of google completely on your phone and preferably install a custom ROM that doesn't spy on you (GrapheneOS, CalyxOS if you have pixel, /e/ os otherwise)
    • ThePowerOfFuet 4y ago
      Aurora Store is safe, as the APKs are fetched from the Play Store. Anything else, and you are rolling the dice.
    • Ctyra 4y ago
      Thanks
• Eleison23 4y ago
• Tempest1981 4y ago
  So what should OP have done to avoid being tracked while on vacation? Turn off android Location? Use a burner phone, and sign in with a new account? Can Google do the same thing on iOS?
• lamontcg 4y ago
  Do any diving down there? I really need to get back.
• wdr1 4y ago
  If you, as the user, want to restrict this, you can do so here: https://myadcenter.google.com/controls/ads-data/historical-location https://myadcenter.google.com/controls/ads-data/historical-l... Advertisers are generally aware of this. They can control location & language targeting. Digital advertisers are aware digital target is imperfect, and that imperfection is often called "wasted" and is n priced in. Your comment about Edge on your desktop makes me thing something beyond Google is going on, as Edge only runs on Windows (a non-Google product, made by Microsoft) and Edge is also a non-Google product, made by Microsoft. I wouldn't be surprised if something is confused in Windows & that's propagating into your web experience.
  • wereallterrrist 4y ago
    What? No, i just meant that its a random browser that i have no cookies on, on a stationary computer that has never left my apartment?
  • leetnewb 4y ago
    Edge runs on many platforms - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/edge/download?form=MA13FW https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/edge/download?form=MA13FW
• johnwheeler 4y ago
  Why is everyone so worried about personalized ads? Serious question.
• europeanguy 4y ago
  > Is this expected/known? I expect that Google will use any data the can obtain to make themselves more money. So if could've imagined the situation you described.
• _8j50 4y ago
  I don't have a single Google device in my residence for this among other reasons. I bought a tablet once while traveling just like you with my cc, didn't have time to use it much, just streamed video (never signed in, don't even remember my google account from years ago), the tablet has no gps or mobile data capability. As soon as I got home it connected to my wifi automatically. I thought I lost my mind for a few minutes. My phone being connected and somehow associating me (they can fingerprint you by your device sensors -- patented) with the stores ssid is my only explanation. I get MS and apple are locked down but why the hell would you use a product by a company that treats you like google does. Apple and MS are just greedy or shortsighted, google is openly hostile, it's not that they don't care about your privacy but that loss of your privacy is their main product!
• stranded22 4y ago
  When I change my dns location, the language and adverts change for my shield/android TV
• rolandf 4y ago
  Have a look at Wigle.net and you will better understand how some localisation services works.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• nokya 4y ago
  Short answer can be summarized as follows: Can X correlate data "that way" about users at scale and at an acceptable cost? If yes, then X does it. Works for all companies that generate revenue from targeted advertising (GAFAMs of course, and many many others).
• infinitedata 4y ago
  Leaky VPN, time to switch to Mullvad. GOAT.