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Comment by maxpert | Hacker News Reader

I love it! Using this I’ve seen FB/Google having less and less information about my exact location. Seeing less relevant ads is assuring and relieving! The only wish I have is a more fluent way to enable/disable this and having an app for other platforms.

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Google Fi also has a VPN solution if you use them. Some ads are definitely as if I'm in another state. The weird one is shopping sites (like Home Depot) try to guess my closest store and they are always wildly off. It's sorta funny.

The weirder thing is that even after I login, Home Depot (and Best Buy and Staples) show me the wrong preferred store. I already saved what store I want, plus I have my home address saved (and it is the only address), yet they cannot remember or figure out my preferred store. And they have my purchase history for where I have already purchased things a million times, in recent history.

What is all this data good for?

One explanation is that the ads/marketing is managed by a completely different "silo" in the business than the website itself. It may even be outsourced to a separate company.

When it comes to ads/marketing, it is good enough to make others believe they are driving sales/conversions - whether it actually does is irrelevant as long as everyone believes it does and keeps pouring money into it.

God this is so annoying. I had chalked it up to bad big-box software engineering software but now I realize it’s private relay. Hmm…

Also Google One, which doesn't require using Fi.

https://one.google.com/about/vpn

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