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Google map, is it just me or have they made some changes?

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Blackhat

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Posted August 14, 2012 at 5:06PM

It always used to open up showing the whole UK, now when I open it shows my town fairly close in. Are they using ISP info or IP address, how does it know where I live?

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Woolwell

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Posted August 14, 2012 at 5:21PM

It uses your current location. Oddly I have gone back to whole of UK and don't know why.

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john bunyan

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Posted August 14, 2012 at 5:26PM

How does it know your location? I have never told it where I am so mine shows whole of UK, even with a fixed IP

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interzone55

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Posted August 14, 2012 at 5:27PM

Google can tell your location from ISP data.

Interestingly today, whilst I sit here in Rochdale it thinks I'm in France. Yesterday, whilst I was in Morecambe it thought I was in Rumania.

Both times I was connected to my work network, via VPN. My employers host computer is somewhere in the depths of North Dakota.

Maybe you can easily confuse Google...

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KRONOS the First

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Posted August 14, 2012 at 5:36PM

Up here in Edinburgh I am usually shown to be somewhere in the West Midlands.

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Forum Editor

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Posted August 14, 2012 at 6:23PM

The first time you used Google maps your browser would have asked if you were happy to share your location with Google.

If you clicked 'yes' you gave Google permission to use your browser's geolocation feature to work out where you are. If that sounds like your situation you can turn the facility off. The way you do it depends on which browser you use, so look in the settings options.

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Blackhat

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Posted August 14, 2012 at 6:41PM

OK Firstly I am not too bothered by the change, just curious as it has happened overnight and I haven’t clicked on anything allowing Google to share my location or did so in the past.

This is not the case with the office pc’s at work, just my home pc?

Having selected ‘never allow web site to request your location’ in settings and then did a clear followed by putting Google map in the block list no change!

I will leave it as it is for now but still curious as to how Google do it and as with some who have posted here how they also get it wrong?

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morddwyd

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Posted August 14, 2012 at 9:13PM

If, like me, you synch your Goggle account with your mobile and you have GPS switched on it's perhaps somehow possible that they know where you are.

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interzone55

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Posted August 14, 2012 at 9:20PM

morddwyd

That's a good point...

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Blackhat

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Posted August 14, 2012 at 10:35PM

I don't synch with my mobile or have GPS? As I have said before it has only happened overnight on my home pc?

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Forum Editor

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Posted August 14, 2012 at 11:30PM

Google can track you via your mobile phone, as already indicated, and there is a PC version of the software that enables them to do it, but you have to opt in for that to happen, and you've already said you didn't do that.

You can be tracked via wireless hot spots too, if you use them, but that's normally going to happen when you're using a laptop or tablet.

If you haven't enabled the tracking option in your browser for Google maps I'm at a loss to explain the reason it's happening.

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