i vary my IP randomly to try to be tracked less on the internet by ad companies.

when using duckduckgo, i notice my results of certain searches seem slightly correlated to the IP I use if there’s anything that could be impacted by location.

this is also not just country specific, where duckduckgo is narrowing this down based on country

i am not sure if duckduckgo is passing on the IP or if somehow bing has partnered with data centers or ISPs to try to guess the IPs going into duckduckgo.

I also may be sensing this correlation and it’s just random and not there. i could be wrong.

Does anyone else ever notice this or wonder about this?

    • secretlyaddictedtolinux@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      1·
      5 months ago

      the original thing that seemed strange to me may have been a coincidence then.

      my actual experience was worse than the example. it’s like i was using a berlin based IP address, and did a search for luggage, and then the result was “Berlin Luggage Ecofriendly Designs.” It could have been coincidental, but a top result had the city of the IP in it and there was nothing I mentioned in the search related to the IP. I also use a browser and OS system such that duckduckgo should know from javascript that I am likely and English speaker.

      But sometimes coincidences happen.