Fixing Google geolocation screwups

Jeroen Massar jeroen at massar.ch
Wed Apr 8 11:56:20 UTC 2015


On 2015-04-08 13:31, Max Tulyev wrote:
> We operate IPv6 tunnel broker tb.netassist.ua, so /48 from our /32 is
> spread all around the world.
> Google change geo of our WHOLE /32 from time to time to another cute
> random place ;) One time Google decided we are in IRAN and block a lot
> of content as "not available in your country" o_O
> Unfortunately, there is no "magic button" to fix it, as well as no human
> contact in Google to discuss it. I'm still trying to find a good
> solution, but not found it.

Do check:
http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-google-self-published-geofeeds-02
That draft also contains folks to kick who wrote it.

Or more details on how SixXS uses that:
https://www.sixxs.net/faq/misc/?faq=geolocation


It is a hard problem unfortunately as there are a variety of reasons why
content owners perform Geolocation (language detection / Content
restrictions etc).

For most organizations "Geolocation" all comes down to "IP Protection"
(Stupid Property aka "Content", not Internet Protocol). Hence, if you
have a /32 IPv6 assigned to the Ukraine (which is already considered a
shady country by most unfortunately for you) and then start offering VPN
services, you'll likely just end up blocked in most of these "IP
protecting networks" as folks just think you are trying to circumvent
their great and awesome IP Protection strategies.


That stated, properly providing a WHOIS entry for each prefix
(inetnum/inet6num) is a good idea as that kind of indicates that that
prefix is fixed in that location and not just moving around.



As for Google, well, they have the method described above, but as they
are primarily a HTTP company, they could just detect Language setting by
the HTTP Accept-Language header. For YouTube etc they are in the same
boat as everybody else: IP Protection. (property not network).


In the end, having a prefix per country/region is the correct way to go.

Do make sure though that you do not show any foreign address in the
whois data (even if that is the correct entity that the prefix is
registered under) otherwise that whole prefix will suddenly be blocked
by for instance Netflix as "it is foreign"... Though Netflix always
considers VPNs as a bad thing, ignoring the fact that for some folks
that is the only real way to get a reasonable Internet experience.

That all said: Restricting content based on location is complete and
utter nonsense in 2015. The world is global, people want to pay for
content and the content owners just don't allow people to pay for it.

We all know what the end result of that is ;)

Greets,
 Jeroen




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