Is my IP now firmly linked to my location?

During a radio discussion on sourcing internet polls it was stated that all poll responses are linked to their location via their IP address.

I prefer to keep my online presence as anonymous as possible and don't log into Google etc. When using Google search + Firefox my location "from your internet address" was hundreds of miles away but earlier this year we noticed that our Google location was a town only a few miles away. At the same time we noticed that ads atop Google search results were given a local slant however absurd.

In the past the location could easily be changed by resetting the router or leaving it off overnight. Now there seems no way of anonymising one's location. Have others noticed this and has anyone a solution? I'm not a criminal and alas I'm too old to get up to mischief -- just don't like Big Brother stuff.

check what this link sees as your location.

https://whatismyipaddress.com/

You need to change your location permissions in any browsers that you use so that any location requests are blocked - and delete any sites that have asked for permissions in the past so if that site asks again it gets a decline.

Also consider using a VPN all of the time as that will (or should) only have a location as the end point at which your traffic ‘appears’.

Geolocation is built into pretty much all browsers now. You can set a spoof set of co-ordinates into your browser via a script, but how well it works I have no experience of.

In reply to a post by Malwaremike:

Have others noticed this and has anyone a solution?

The web is funded by advertising and the advertisers want to target you. Blocking ads is a start, although trust some sites (e.g. this one) as they need the money.

Using a VPN helps in that it forces your IP to change. If you are with Virgin Media your IP might locate to a regional area, if you are with an Openreach based ISP then your IP can be anywhere in the country.

If you use Google on your phone, or have an Android phone, Google will map the GPS location of WiFi points by name. This is how Google learns the location of WiFi. - but also it doesn't matter if you use a phone, but anyone whom temporarily hears your WiFi signal (e.g. walking past the home) can geolocate. So you can't do anything about that.

The site https://www.iplocation.net/ is useful to see what various databases think of you.

I generally don't worry about most of it, just block adverts, especially those that take over the browser or PC screen.

Google will attempt to geolocate you by a number of different means and the bit at the bottom of a Google search page will give an indication.

What they are effectively saying is Google has reasonable confidence now that it thinks you are in a geographic area based on your IP address. It has most likely assumed your location, probably as jcharmier says, from a phone that has either GPS turned on or a more coarse location from WiFi databases or cellular based location.

It has probably seen users on your IP address consistently through cookies along with location so has made that assumption.

Even with being very careful with cookies, clearing history, denying HTML 5 location requsts on browsers etc it is still easy to get caught out/forget - and if using an Android phone in particlar difficult to avoid location services.

Have you had visitors recently who you let use your internet at all?

Aside from Google there are many companies that try and geolocate from IP alone, such as Maxmind and my experience is that the main factor in the accuracy seems to vary by ISP.

Interestingly the Google search page gives the large village I live in (hey, I'm not mega careful with location on my phone etc!) but most of IP geolocation websites put me in a town 10 miles away.

Equally interesting is that even with my dynamic IP on BT retail it pretty much always puts me in the same town - even with completely different IP ranges! The location databases can't be update that quickly I'm sure - so I'd be very intrested in how BT assign thier IP ranges!

With my ISP my location could be anywhere in UK. Once was in India (IP number buying).
During the lock down's if our govement took notice of my IP location they would be blame for speading sars-covid-2. For one day in Dundee then Mancherster over Devon next to Hull on to way to Cork. Well you get idea, I turn it in to a game and had a bit of fun on Google Maps Street View driving around.

This site brought up a whole range of stuff including my op system, ISP, screen res, Chrome browser (though I'm on Vivaldi which apparently uses Chrome basis) yet placed me 250 miles away in Wales. Conversely another IP site gave my accurate location.

I don't use mobile data, hardly use my phone except for family comms, browser blocks all requests for data or location, and enable cookies only because some sites need them -- eg Amazon, banking etc/ I use a PC with cable to router. When I need some local firm's info from their Facebook page etc I use a fictitious login name but this does not hide my IP I suppose.

Doesn't really matter but it's interesting to see how much info we give away. Many thanks folks for all the info.
Mike

As far as operating system, screen res, browser, etc there is likely no particular black magic here - it is probably just using local system variables to display them rather than grabbing them from some central database.

EDIT : And as far as location goes it doesn't need to be you giving away the info. Anyone nearby that has a mobile turned on picking up wifi SSIDs can report it back as to the location of where that SSID was seen. Enough reports and it can be triangulated easily. Then all they need to do is link someone that connects to your IP with the local SSIDs of access points and they have the 2 pieces of data joined up.

Edited by ian72 (Tue 31-Aug-21 12:58:02)

I would add that Google Streeview car's collect locations of SSID's and the corresponding MAC addresses of the access points they see as they drive around too.

I thought the geolocation was set by the ISP - duno why - mine used to be all over uk on BT - lately its always right . not too bothered tho