Tahoe Private Relay - websites know my city?

OttoKnobetter wrote:

Thank you. This may apply to an iPhone, but I am using Tahoe on a MacBook over my home wifi network. I don't think iCloud is involved. Spectrum cable is my internet provider, so maybe they are somehow disclosing my location?

As far as cookies are concerned, when I accessed the same site using my VPN subscription, the ads were directed to the VPN's IP address, which is a city far from where I live. This was true whether I had logged in to the website or was looking without logging in.

On the Mac you have the same geographic location options or obscure your location.

1. Go to the System Settings app  on your Mac.
2. Click your name at the top of the sidebar.
3. If you don’t see your name, click “Sign in,” enter your Apple Account email address or phone number, then enter your password.
4. Click iCloud, then click Private Relay.
5. Click the IP Address Location pop-up menu, then choose one of the following:

• • Maintain general location (for example, to see local content in Safari)
  • Use country and time zone (to make your location more obscure)

To add Private Relay to your WiFi/Ethernet Network:

1. Go to the System Settings app on your Mac.
2. Click Network in the sidebar. (You may need to scroll down.)
3. Do one of the following:

• • Click Wi-Fi, then click Details next to the name of the network.
  • Click the name of your Ethernet connection, then click Advanced.

4 Turn “Limit IP address tracking” on or off to enable or disable iCloud Private Relay on the network.

Use iCloud Private Relay on Mac - Apple Support

If you went to that website before you used Private Relay they could have added a cookie that may show additional location data to be used when you access that website again. Also if you signed into a website where you created an account, they have the information that you gave them when the account was created.

With Private Relay, you have 2 options for how specific you want your location to be known where neither of them are your exact location. If the website just knows your City, I suspect you have yours set to Maintain General Location. That means if you search for a business in Safari, you are more likely to get relevant results locally.

Go to Settings > [your name] > iCloud > Private Relay > IP Address Location, then choose one of the following:

• Maintain General Location (for example, to see local content in Safari)
• Use Country and Time Zone (to make your location more obscure)

Protect your web browsing with iCloud Private Relay on iPhone - Apple Support (IN)

OttoKnobetter wrote:

Why do website ads show my city when using Private Relay and Safari? I had hoped I could stop my VPN subscription.

They may be using browser cookies. You can try clearing out the browser's cookies & let them be recreated again without your physical location when you access the site. Of course if you do business with the site, then the ads will probably take the information provided by that site to serve you ads with your location.

iCloud IS involved. You need an iCloud+ subscription to use it. As with a VPN, your IP address and exact location are not revealed. What it will do is put in in within a general range of where you actually are so that you can easily search for services (stores, restaurants, etc.) in your area without having to put in a location to the search engines.

The level of "detail" that's passed is limited. If you don't even want sites to be able to determine your general location, then I suggest you may want to re-think your use of the Internet at all... When you use a VPN, the hosting provider collects EVERYTHING. Everywhere you go, everything you look at, everything you type, and exactly where you are. That data is logged and kept, no matter what their policies may say, is discoverable by law enforcement and government agencies, and is very often sold, again, regardless of what their policies say.

In Settings, click your name at the top, then iCloud, the private relay. You will find the setting there

I think using a VPN can be problematic.

The only time I have used one was with an employer-provided VPN custom configured for the corporate network for remote use only, to protect proprietary information and to meet government-mandated security requirements of contractors.

Ordinary over the counter commercial VPNs have proven to be security risks in the past. A commercial VPN is like paying someone to carry your paper mail from the mailbox to your residence and along the way they open and read all your private paper mail before leaving it at your home. Would you trust such an arrangement. VPNs are like an electronic version of that. Many VPN companies have been embroiled in scandals or breeches or even lawsuits for violating the customers' trust.

A VPN can sell your information to whomever it wants. So maybe it is passing that private information on to third parties, we just don't know, but this sort of misbehavior has been uncovered in the past.

Since using a VPN does absolutely nothing to actually protect your privacy or secure your data, I'd say yes, private relay is an "adequate substitute".

What do you think a VPN does for you that private relay doesn't. Your exact location will be obscured with private relay. If you are trying to bypass geo-restrictions to access content that's not available in your region, Private relay won't do that. Doing that would be illegal in most cases.

You are welcome!