Privacy

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

submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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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[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (3 children)

By "fresh login" do you mean "new account"?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Open private browsing window, make sure I’m fully logged out of Amazon. Then log in.

Ie wasn’t previously logged in before the VPN started or private window was opened.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

so its your original account? the same one you started with before getting the vpn

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I have a US Amazon account linked to a US home address and credit card. But I now live in Oz.

Audible uses your Amazon account. And regardless, I’m using an Audible credit for this purchase, so no actual payment anyway.

EDIT: and just to clarify, this is my US Amazon account I’ve had for years