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How does Amazon/Audible know my country with VPN and private browsing on? (aussie.zone)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by supercheesecake@aussie.zone to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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Title.

Trying to buy an audiobook with my US account from Australia. Am using a VPN and a fresh log in using a private browsing window. Still getting the “not for sale in this country…”

How does Amazon/Audible still know my country?!

EDIT: Thank you everyone for your suggestions, but I feel like we’re no closer to figuring out how Amazon is detecting my physical country. If they have some new “trick” surely this is a privacy issue as well?!

EDIT 2: Important details, this is on my iPhone using both the Amazon and Audible apps, and via the web with Safari (mentioned below). Doesn’t work.

I gave up and went to my desktop and was able to complete the purchase following the same steps without issue. So 🤷‍♂️ ?!

Clearly Amazon is scraping some information from the phone to region lock the purchase. Still would love to know given VPN isn’t masking my location apparently.

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[–] DrPen@mastodon.social 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

@Pika @supercheesecake dont wanna butt in but in case this is relevant: I use at least 3 Amazon regional accounts here in Europe: UK, Germany and Italy (I live in another EU country). I sign in with the same username/password. Currency of products changes for UK from EUR to GBP, and often different ranges of products can show up. I have multiple addresses listed for delivery and just select the one I want.

[–] Pika@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

that's similar to how I do it, change the region and then pay, but some items I've noticed block sale if the originating payment method is in a different region

[–] DrPen@mastodon.social 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@Pika Id have to log into the new region from he start, go find the same product, then order. I dont think it would work if I change region half way through a purchase.

[–] Pika@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

oh sorry if I was unclear, yea since it's still a different account I would need to login when I change regions as well, I can't change halfway through.

[–] DrPen@mastodon.social 2 points 1 year ago

@Pika no probs! Sometimes the products arent available for whatever reason in a region.

[–] newpuritan@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How are you setting up new accounts? I just tried to create a new one using a VPN but can't because it asks for my phone number for verification which has already been used.

[–] DrPen@mastodon.social 2 points 1 year ago

@newpuritan Its the same account, I just sign in to different Amazon regional sites.