Websites that detect your location; non-technical issues.

[Brian-M]

I was just wondering if anyone has any thoughts or anecdotes about privacy issues, inconveniences or other issues caused by websites that detect your geographic location.

For example, when I use Google, it automatically redirects me to Google Australia, which seems to give sites from Australia a much higher ranking than would be expected from a non-geographically biased search.

What got me thinking about this is that I just logged out of my web-based email provider, and I was looking through the news articles that show up on the page, which I don't normally do, when I noticed this...

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My initial thought was: Holy crap! It's going to be 59 degrees!

A second later I realized that it couldn't possibly mean Celsius, it must mean Fahrenheit. I used another site to find out that 59 degrees Fahrenheit is 15 degrees Celsius, which makes a hell of a lot more sense. (59 degrees Celsius is 138 degrees Fahrenheit!).

The site was programmed to show my local weather forecast, but not to show it in the units used locally, or even give any indication of what units were being used. And so it had me surprised for a second or two.

 

[elgarak]

This kinda reminds of these stupid fake virus scanners. You know, the ones that look like a Windows XP Explorer window, and after some fake animation tell you your computer is infected and ask you to download the remover.

Why it's related? I see them on a Mac running Mac OS X. I know my browser tells the other side all kinds of things, the most harmless ones include the browser and operating system. But those dumb-arse lazy malware writer can't even check those and select an appropriate animation...

 

[GodMark2]

As always, XKCD

http://xkcd.com/713/

(We really should have this as a BBCODE macro like [XKCD]713[/XKCD])

 

[rjh01]

Just about any site you go to can find out your IP address. With that you can find out who your ISP is and your location.
Ref http://www.cqcounter.com/whois/

 

[Dancing David]

Yeah it is annoying that they use your IP address to get your general location.

 

[Uncayimmy]

Yeah it is annoying that they use your IP address to get your general location.

What's annoying about it?

 

[Dancing David]

I don't really want ads, and when they are personalized it annoys me, minor thing really.

 

[elgarak]

I don't really want ads, and when they are personalized it annoys me, minor thing really.

AdBlocker and Click-To-Flash for Safari and Mac OS X, AdBlock Plus and NoScript for FireFox (all OS'es) to minimize the annoyance...

 

[Ratatoskr]

As long as you're not using a proxy, every page you go to will see your ip, which they can use for logging, ads, or nothing if they want to. People like to think they're anonymous when surfing, which is far from the truth.

Still, I find it hilarious that they change the place, but not the girls when those "meet girls in [area]" ads pop up.

 

[Beerina]

You tell everywhere you go what your address is -- that's how they know where to sent the data you requested they send you.


And those address blocks are registered with certain owners, typically telecom companies, which say whereabouts they are. It's not horrifically accurate, but close enough in most cases.



BTW, in case you didn't know, "www.blahblahblah.com" is just a mnemonic for an actual numeric address.

 

[dtugg]

I am not very concerned who knows my IP address. Sure any website I visit knows what it is. And sure, they can get it down to a general area, but there a a million people who live here. But only my ISP knows who the IP address is connected to and they aren't just giving it out to just anybody.

 

[Towlie]

But only my ISP knows who the IP address is connected to and they aren't just giving it out to just anybody.

... unless they get an official-looking letter from some corporation or organization demanding to know your identity.

That happens all the time. Sometimes the only reason for the request is that the anonymous person said something the corporation didn't like, but ISPs fear those corporations a lot more than they fear you, and they have virtually no motivation to take your side.