Do Virgin sell details of customer IP's?

[Billy-Bob]

I ask because recently, I have started to see adverts on websites that seem to know where I live (specifically, the Eurostar advert promising low fares to Paris from the town that I live in).

I was curious as to how this was happening (not to mention creeped-out big-time) so fired-up Firefox, cleared all cookies (including flash), disabled cookies, then loaded the offending page - and hey-presto, it still knew exactly where I was.

The only mechanism I can think of is that the ad-server knows the geopgrahical location of the IP address to be served with an ad, and injects location-specific detail into certain ads before dispatching them.
Now I know that I can (and I often do) use no-script, ad-blocker and better privacy, but it irks me to think that Virgin are telling advertisers the geographical location of my IP address.

I'm not a tech, and this is all guess-work on my part - do any IT-types out there have any further info on this sort of thing?

[Ignitionnet]

Here ya go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geolocation

[danielf]

Try here: http://whatismyipaddress.com/

This IP lookup tool is designed to provide additional information about the entered IP address. These details include the hostname, Geographic location information (includes country, region/state, city, latitude, longitude and telephone area code.), and a location specific map. The geographic details are pulled from a commercially available geolocation database. Geolocation technology can never be 100% accurate in providing the location of an IP address. When the IP address is a proxy server and it does not expose the user's IP address it is virtually impossible to locate the user. The country accuracy is estimated at about 99%. For IP addresses in the United States, it is 90% accurate on the state level, and 81% accurate within a 25 mile radius. Our world-wide users indicate 60% accurate within 25 miles (see results). By default this tool will lookup the IP address that you are using. You can enter any IP address in its place below.

For me it's about 15 miles out.

[Kymmy]

And the DNS results of VM IP's are more regional than any other ISP's in the country.

[Sir John Luke]

...or are VM using Feeva?

http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/04/28/as-phorm-screws-up-again-feeva-is-in-the-rear-view-mirror/

[Ravenheart]

Firefox 3.5 added location aware browsing which could also be a possibility if you're using FF

info on how to turn it off here

http://lifehacker.com/5297027/disable-firefox-35s-location+aware-browsing

[Bman]

I've seen all kinds of adverts with my location on since at least 8 years ago with Virgin/Telewest, it was only when we moved over to BT i noticed the same adverts would sometimes guess our location 100's of miles from our actual location.

[Stuart]

I've seen all kinds of adverts with my location on since at least 8 years ago with Virgin/Telewest, it was only when we moved over to BT i noticed the same adverts would sometimes guess our location 100's of miles from our actual location.

It's probably because the Cable network has hardware in a lot more places than BT. Virgin also seem to be quite good at logging the place for each of their IPs relatively accurately.

When I was with Virgin, I would get ads telling me my local town (just a mile up the road).

Now, I have registered with Be, I seem to get ads telling me I am all over the place although, oddly, none of them get my position accurately to within 6 miles.

[danielf]

What are ads????

[Nilrem]

"meet sexy women in (town with the nearest VM hub)" ;)
I keep getting those sort of thigns on various sites :) (although they are out by about 10 miles, in a town I actively avoid going to:p)

[sollp]

Not exclusive to VM, i have Sky BB and it does the same. The adds mention the town i live in. Just done the Firefox thing by putting false in the geo.enabled.

[Toto]

...or are VM using Feeva?

http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/04/28/as-phorm-screws-up-again-feeva-is-in-the-rear-view-mirror/

LOL, tin foil territory again.

For the O/P there are threads on here where VM customers trying to access content that is only served to UK customers have complained that their IP address states they are in a different country...so I doubt they are selling information, in fact, they are not....there, I said it.

[Turkey Machine]

What are ads????

Love it. :) Adblock Plus FTW! :D

[Sir John Luke]

LOL, tin foil territory again.

For the O/P there are threads on here where VM customers trying to access content that is only served to UK customers have complained that their IP address states they are in a different country...so I doubt they are selling information, in fact, they are not....there, I said it.

Assurance accepted - it does look more like Firefox is to blame here, though I wouldn't rule out VM using Feeva in future.

[SmartMart]

I wouldn't point a finger at Firefox as I get it with IE8. It's more than likely that they get the info from your rDNS.

Regards .....

[*sloman*]

What are ads????

redtube

[Toto]

Assurance accepted - it does look more like Firefox is to blame here, though I wouldn't rule out VM using Feeva in future.

Oh most certainly. VM have gone on record that they have not ruled out some sort of targeted advertising system. :)

[frogstamper]

Try here: http://whatismyipaddress.com/



For me it's about 15 miles out.

It appears pretty accurate with my IP addy, its within one mile of my address.

[Peter_]

Try here: http://whatismyipaddress.com/




I expected it to show where my uBR is sited but even that was around 2 miles out.:D

I do know exactly where mine is sited by the way.;)

[Hugh]

Try here: http://whatismyipaddress.com/

For me it's about 15 miles out.

Quite a bit out on mine - it has me in South Leeds (Armley), when I actually live in North West Leeds (I'll accept the council tax band, though :D)

[Ignitionnet]

Oki it's easy really!

Go to http://www.ripe.net - note in the top right corner it has your IP address. Enter that address into the box under 'RIPE Database Search' and click Go!

There's some information on your IP address, these geolocation places sometimes use the information in that publically viewable database to guess where you are, in my case it could guess I'm in Woking or even Bradford.

If they are really clever they can do some other tricks, but that database contains the information that most guesses are based on. It's simply a registry of European IP addresses and for more information on RIPE there is of course their website and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIPE

[Billy-Bob]

Thanks guys and girls for all the info! It does indeed look as if the ad agency could've got my home town from the RIPE database search, but that doesn't mean I trust VM not to sell my personal info (along with their own granny) sometime down the line!
Also thanks for the heads-up on Firefox 3.5's geolocation function - but I don't think it was that to blame in my case - according to the linked article, I would have been asked first in a pop-up to "share" (i.e. give away free for someone else to profit from) my location - and I certainly haven't seen any of those (yet).