Ask HN: Why do websites ignore HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE?
My browser sends 'en-US,en' for English. Yet many sites surreptitiously use a geo-ip lookup to decide what language I "should" be using.
I'm curious to know the pros and cons for this practice.
I'm curious to know the pros and cons for this practice.
What annoys me the most is that it is a huge waste of resources to target ads at me in the wrong language, especially when my browser is passing my preferred language preferences.
Now multiply that by the millions of people who are being mistargetted by ad delivery companies (Google I'm looking at you). What awful losses.
google's at bottom right
fb's at bottom with largest languages, and a button that opens a modal for the rest.
It's extremely frustrating to let websites know I would like to get English content, then be delivered a translated, shortened, bad quality version of the that same content because they think that's better for me.
Actually, while it's probably also a limitation due to licensing, I've had the extremely frustrating experience of trying out Google Play Books on my phone. No language settings. The phone's language, the settings in your Google settings and account are ignored. I'm in Germany, I get the books in German.
I actually would have bought my first book that day if I could have accessed the original version, but I couldn't.
Point is, it's not just ad revenue they're losing out on, but also customers.