Last week, one of the contributors to Guilty Gamer reported to the team that Google had recently sent an email alerting them the company was going to change the country and state associated with their Google account, from India to Virginia in the US. That’s quite an odd change, if I don’t say so myself.
Email in question, changing the region from India to the US
While this contributor was able to quickly remedy the situation by following Google’s instructions to change the region back to India through a support page, our team of tech bloggers was certainly left feeling befuddled as to why this issue had occurred in the first place.
At least the fix is pretty easy
My initial assumption was that a VPN was causing the issue, but the contributor confirmed that they, in fact, do not use one. Fast forward to today, and a fresh Reddit post on the r/deGoogle subreddit reveals a user complaining about the same exact issue. This suggests that the problem is more widespread than we at GG assumed, as Google appears to be randomly changing the location of a handful of its users for unknown reasons.
Reddit post confirms this random region-changing issue is affecting a handful of Google users
You can read through the Reddit thread embedded above and see that several people confirm that Google attempted to change their region from their country of residence to one where they don’t live. There is a pattern here, but the reason for it remains unknown.
You also have to wonder if this is related to the current push for ID in some countries, because if your location is changed to someplace without the need, it would stand to reason that Google wouldn’t have to bother asking you for proof. It’s also worth considering the problems that can arise from suddenly changing a location, such as the difference between using UPI payments in India versus using Google Wallet in the US.
Some users have suggested this is a trick to scrape data, switching users from one region to another that is more lax on data collection. There’s also a good chance this is just a strange bug. However, it’s easy to understand why many jump to conclusions Google is up to no good, thanks to the fact that the company has very publicly lost several lawsuits that have revealed its misdeeds, such as illegally retaining user data or worsening Google Search results to make more money with ads. To put it simply, many people no longer trust Google, and it’s hard to blame them for feeling this way when issues like randomly changing a user’s location appear without warning.
Worse, Google recently suffered a data breach, leaving users on high alert and paranoid that their accounts are at risk. And let me tell you, seeing your location change willy-nilly sure doesn’t help sway that paranoia.
Still, it’s hard to decipher what the underlying issue is here, why users’ locations are being changed without their request. What is clear is that Google is attempting to switch users from their home location to one outside their country, and this needs to stop posthaste.
At least the fix is easy enough
Of course, Guilty Gamer has reached out to Google so the company can clarify precisely what the problem is. For now, if you happen to receive an email from Google that says it’s switching your location to one you don’t live in, we can at the very least assuage your fears, these emails are legit, and to fix the issue all you have to do is jump on over to Google’s Country Association form to set your location back to the correct location.
