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Comment by nirvana | Hacker News Reader

I believe Google is doing this with its google voice product. We're unable to access our google voice accounts outside the USA, despite disabling flash, deleting all cookies, etc. The ironic thing is, of course, that this is when we need it the most, as we miss more calls being in a radically different time zone.

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I'd say they disable access by IP, but I can access my account from two countries that are far outside the US.

Well, I'm using different IPs than the "home" IP we used when we signed up. Any attempts to get into google voice for me, though, say that it is not allowed outside the USA.

Yep, so they just filter by whatever IP you are connecting from from outside the US and that's it. Countless websites and services have been doing that for a looong time - just as evil but should not have anything to do with cookies because then you should be able to sign in just fine on a different machine and use voice.

What do you mean by this? I've always been able to send and receive texts through Google Voice in Canada, I can also call (only have it set up to call my gmail) using the web interface. What I've never managed to do is activate the app on my android phone to allow my send/receive texts there even if I couldn't do calls without a US phone number.

I sometimes run into a problem with Google that when I try to log out, I remain logged in. Even after deleting my cookies, I find myself logged in still. This may explain why.

That should never happen. You should email security@google.com.

Why wouldn't google want people to access their voicemail,texts,etc and make web calls with their GV number all on the computer when they are outside of the country??

Because Google Voice is USA Only right now. I don't know why but that's the policy... and they've gone to surprising lengths to enforce it

Shouldn't you be able to "delete" them by clearing your browser cache?

They're using GeoIP. Use a US proxy. (Source: me trying to open a Google Account and use Voice via Tor)

Tried that, no dice. Hulu and the rest of the world thinks I'm in silicon valley, but google voice is more clever... somehow.

Hm, not sure what to tell you. Check the country you have specified in your account settings too, it has to match. All I can say is that I was able to create a "US Google Account" where my country said "United States of America", but was denied when I tried to access Google Voice. My Tor endpoint was in Russia. When I directed Firefox to use an HTTP proxy with a US endpoint, Google Voice fired right up and let me choose a phone number. Hope that info helps somehow.

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