Chronicling Google's insanity of reassociating public IP to a foreign country

[bakablast]

I'm currently in Argentina but am from the US and since I have accounts (e.g. banking) that often don't work outside of the US or on known commercial VPN IPs, I set up a wireguard VPN server on an old DDWRT router at a friend's house in the US, so that there would be zero issue with accessing any accounts (barring power or internet outages).  It was working really well for the first few weeks, until a couple days ago.  My friend starting texting me screencaps showing ad suggestions on his Youtube app in Spanish and recommendations for Spanish-language youtubers.  The location settings in his Youtube app were constantly being switched to Argentina, and google searches on all their devices showing content and search results relevant to my location in Buenos Aires.

 

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What was frustrating is that Google continued displaying Spanish-language results while logged into a google account that was specifically set to English.  But probably the most problematic thing was when my friend's partner was unable to access certain content for work, due to data wrongly suggesting their location as being in Argentina.  I stopped using the VPN and we since have unplugged it/disabled the port forwarding entirely.  We now realize that somehow Google reassociated the entire public IP as being in Buenos Aires, I think because when I was using the VPN, my devices were the only ones that had precise location services enabled.  So I'm thinking Google took this information and eventually applied it to the public IP.. which is insane and mind-boggling.  Precise location should not override an IPs geolocation if the precise location is clearly in a foreign country - I get that public IP address does not pinpoint your location, but ffs google.  Is my assessment most likely correct here?

 

In hindsight my main concern with the VPN was ensuring that I'm not using too much bandwidth, because the upload speeds on my friend's end is only 11-12 Mbps (thanks cable ISP).  I never anticipated it would completely override their location settings with Google.  Modern internet sucks.

 

 

[Levent]

Nice clickbait title. Google associates IP addresses depending on your phones location. I have been using my own server in the US for over a decade, my devices that I route my entire traffic through still shows my location as in the US. Your VPN is leaking.

[BiotechBen]

I have zero outside the US contact and I still frequently get ads in Spanish, because I live in an apartment block, with a high Hispanic population, Google tracks demographics and then makes a few assumptions, and badda-bing 1-in-6 McDonald's ads are in Spanish, same with Comcast, same with either Modelo or Corona. 

 

-I was invited to a DnD night and for the next week all I got was anime weeb and therapy ads (which, for the people I was with: very good ad targeting)

 

-I see older family and I get Viagra, diabetes, and very dark campaign ads. 

 

-I isolate myself and I get ubiquiti, fs.com, lttstore, and Dell.

[bakablast]

 

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DNS shows a "leak" but that's just me using cloudflare in place of the DNS server of the VPN (a PIA server in Switzerland).  When I enable HTML5 geolocation in Firefox, that's when it shows a leak.  No WebRTC leaks, which is good.

[JohnCandyAss]

55 minutes ago, Levent said:

Nice clickbait title. Google associates IP addresses depending on your phones location. I have been using my own server in the US for over a decade, my devices that I route my entire traffic through still shows my location as in the US. Your VPN is leaking.

Friend in question here.  Forgive me but I am not well versed in these VPN setups but it seems relatively straightforward.  

 

I get Google associates the IP address based off of the phone location, but my phone, my partners phone, laptops and desktops have all now been associated with Argentina despite even having our location services turned on with our phones.

 

I'm just kinda mind boggled that my public IP on my desktop computer, which is not signed in with anything google wise has completely changed over to Spanish and now only shows results for Spanish sites/locations in Argentina.

 

[Levent]

8 minutes ago, JohnCandyAss said:

Friend in question here.  Forgive me but I am not well versed in these VPN setups but it seems relatively straightforward.  

 

I get Google associates the IP address based off of the phone location, but my phone, my partners phone, laptops and desktops have all now been associated with Argentina despite even having our location services turned on with our phones.

 

I'm just kinda mind boggled that my public IP on my desktop computer, which is not signed in with anything google wise has completely changed over to Spanish and now only shows results for Spanish sites/locations in Argentina.

 

Google and Microsoft does their own geolocation association. If you have location services enabled, it will use your actual location as your location despite the IP you are connected from. I am not exactly sure at what point they change your IP address/meta data to different location but it can happen (happened with company VPN I am running as someone connected to the VPN had their location service on).

 

forsenInsane.

[Mark Kaine]

16 minutes ago, Levent said:

Google and Microsoft does their own geolocation association. If you have location services enabled, it will use your actual location as your location despite the IP you are connected from. I am not exactly sure at what point they change your IP address/meta data to different location but it can happen (happened with company VPN I am running as someone connected to the VPN had their location service on).

 

forsenInsane.

This is incorrect (proof below),  at least on phones you can set it up so it uses *your* searches for location (which you can basically change at will therefore) and it's not dependent on language and you don't even have to be signed in.

 

 

(note im not currently in "Tuscany, Italy" and i haven't been for over a year)

 

However, sadly, as of a year ago or so this does not work on pcs anymore (google simply removed the associated settings) not sure there's a workaround,  but as said on Android devices this should not be a thing (with the right settings "dont use ip adress for location " or something like that) 

 

 

ps: yeah I know you said "if they have location service on" but didn't OP say they have it *off*?

 

 

i mean if you use location service it should probably use gps/ip adress, that's the whole point of location service 

[Levent]

1 minute ago, Mark Kaine said:

This is incorrect (proof below),  at least on phones you can set it up so it uses *your* searches for location (which you can basically change at will therefore) and it's not dependent on language and you don't even have to be signed in.

 

 

 

(note im not currently in "Tuscany, Italy" and i haven't been for over a year)

 

However, sadly, as of a year ago or so this does not work on pcs anymore (google simply removed the associated settings) not sure there's a workaround,  but as said on Android devices this should not be a thing (with the right settings "dont use ip adress for location " or something like that) 

That is also incorrect. Pretty sure this is not the only way google get your location.

[Mark Kaine]

5 minutes ago, Levent said:

That is also incorrect. Pretty sure this is not the only way google get your location.

depends on your settings!  

 

as long you have gps etc off this works 100%... it uses your "past activity" which simply means searches, it takes like 3 searches or so to change location (say if i wanted to change it from italy to france or to usa, etc)

 

its pretty funny it sometimes outright tells me im in China,  even though i haven't been there my entire life! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

[Mark Kaine]

took exactly 4 searches!  (shenzen, bejing time, bejing,  Forbidden City...)

 

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(see what happens when i click on "update location"???  )

 

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Welcome to Beijing China!