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The article mentions that booking sites may come up with ways to neutralize the use of VPNs to circumvent geolocation-based pricing. I rarely book rooms in adva

The article mentions that booking sites may come up with ways to neutralize the use of VPNs to circumvent geolocation-based pricing. I rarely book rooms in advance (most of my stays away from home are in motels on road trips), and I almost always prefer booking directly with the hotel when I do book in advance. I wonder to what extent fingerprinting the computer will defeat the use of VPN in this situation? I also wonder if/when AirBnB/VRBO may start doing a similar thing? But I guess that would involve the private property owner participating in the scheme.

creer 2y ago
> ways to neutralize the use of VPNs Probably - unfortunately - and so we can expect buying online to become ever more cumbersome. Great /s. Although diminishing returns might save us: the platforms will focus on "most buyers" and hopefully leave techies alone. But we can see in the youtube story that in some cases there is sooooo much money that even the techies will be beat back through pharaonic efforts.
walrus01 2y ago
Another thought on that, if you use tmobile LTE data and tethering (or just book directly using LTE data on your phone, using firefox as a browser on android, with the user agent switcher extension installed to perfectly mimic a desktop useragent), it's near impossible for random websites to determine where you are at geographically. The CGNAT exit point for my tmobile service when roaming in Canada bounces around between IP space that geolocates to either chicago, texas or los angeles. Whereas if you use a residential cablemodem or DSL or FTTH connection in some specific city, where you're likely not behind cgnat and the ivp4 /22 or larger sized IP block you are "coming from" remains consistent on a multi year basis, 3rd party geolocation providers are much more likely to say "yep that person is in the SF bay area"
- scarface_74 2y ago
  With T-Mobile, I get a different public IPv4 and IPv6 address every time I turn on and off airplane mode and it got my approximate location correct
cortesoft 2y ago
I will have to have my mother in law in Kansas book our hotels.
Eridrus 2y ago
I don't think it is actually in business' interests to stop VPNs here. Using a VPN, with the associated hassle, likely indicates the person is stingy and very price sensitive, so you want to keep giving them the cheaper prices relative to others.

creer 2y ago

> ways to neutralize the use of VPNs Probably - unfortunately - and so we can expect buying online to become ever more cumbersome. Great /s. Although diminishing returns might save us: the platforms will focus on "most buyers" and hopefully leave techies alone. But we can see in the youtube story that in some cases there is sooooo much money that even the techies will be beat back through pharaonic efforts.

walrus01 2y ago

Another thought on that, if you use tmobile LTE data and tethering (or just book directly using LTE data on your phone, using firefox as a browser on android, with the user agent switcher extension installed to perfectly mimic a desktop useragent), it's near impossible for random websites to determine where you are at geographically. The CGNAT exit point for my tmobile service when roaming in Canada bounces around between IP space that geolocates to either chicago, texas or los angeles. Whereas if you use a residential cablemodem or DSL or FTTH connection in some specific city, where you're likely not behind cgnat and the ivp4 /22 or larger sized IP block you are "coming from" remains consistent on a multi year basis, 3rd party geolocation providers are much more likely to say "yep that person is in the SF bay area"

scarface_74 2y ago
With T-Mobile, I get a different public IPv4 and IPv6 address every time I turn on and off airplane mode and it got my approximate location correct

cortesoft 2y ago

I will have to have my mother in law in Kansas book our hotels.

Eridrus 2y ago

I don't think it is actually in business' interests to stop VPNs here. Using a VPN, with the associated hassle, likely indicates the person is stingy and very price sensitive, so you want to keep giving them the cheaper prices relative to others.