Once again, for the second time in three weeks, sites like Google, Youtube and others that rely on IP Based Geolocation to decide what country you're in and what language to render the site in for you are giving me something I don't want ... their sites in a language other than English. This also includes occasionally running into content restrictions because they've decided that 173.202.19.208 is in Spain somewhere instead of my actual location in Northeast Arkansas, USA.
And before you say it, No I am not a hamster, I didn't go and forget that I left a proxy enabled either. I can't say why this has been happening but it's really annoying to say the least and possibly more than that. Imagine somebody looking for a job going to an employment website to do a Phoenix Job Search because that's where they live and naturally that's where they want to find a job but because the site uses geolocation the poor sot ends up with job offers somewhere in Madrid.
I'll grant you, it's little more than an inconvenience for me but it could be a heck of a lot more than that very easily.
Technorati Tags: annoying, geolocation, pain in the, wrong geolocation
That’s interesting, because that IP belongs to CenturyTel… Based in LA.
OrgName: CenturyTel Internet Holdings, Inc.
OrgID: CIH-12
Address: 100 CenturyTel Drive
City: Monroe
StateProv: LA
PostalCode: 71201
Country: US
NetRange: 173.202.0.0 – 173.202.255.255
CIDR: 173.202.0.0/16
OriginAS: AS5668
NetName: NETBLK-CENTURYTEL15
NetHandle: NET-173-202-0-0-1
Parent: NET-173-0-0-0-0
NetType: Direct Allocation
NameServer: NS1.CENTURYTEL.NET
NameServer: NS2.CENTURYTEL.NET
Comment:
RegDate: 2009-09-25
Updated: 2009-09-25
OrgAbuseHandle: SYSTE21-ARIN
OrgAbuseName: Network Availability
OrgAbusePhone: +1-800-809-1410
OrgAbuseEmail: abuse@centurytel.net
OrgTechHandle: NA397-ORG-ARIN
OrgTechName: Network Availability
OrgTechPhone: +1-800-809-1410
OrgTechEmail: network@centurytel.net
As well I know since Centurytel (though now I guess they’re “centurylink”) is my ISP and has been for most of the 13 years I’ve lived in Arkansas. Why an IP Geolocator would place me in Spain or France is beyond me. Also, not too long ago my IP address would start with either 207.x.x.x , 90.x.x.x, or 70.x.x.x
Disclaimer: I am not a net architect, but I do know a bit about some of the infrastructure.
90.x.x.x is assigned to RIPE (http://www.db.ripe.net/whois, https://ws.arin.net/whois/?queryinput=90.0.0.0), which is in Amsterdam, and handles a good chunk of the EU’s IP assignments, if not all of them. Most likely, if you’re getting a 90.x.x.x address, geolocating by IP services are querying RIPE’s DB and think you’re coming from overseas. This works on the assumption that they are doing things in this manner, of course.
The other two netblocks you mention are managed by ARIN (https://www.arin.net/index.html), which is in North America.
Well I could easily be wrong about the 90.x.x.x, it’s not like I normally check my IP address very often.