Change in IP Location Reporting?

[#1]

For the first time ever with Plusnet (or previous ISPs I've been with), I just found an IP look-up actually reports my real location ... ie, a small town in Cornwall. Tumblr, for example, also reports it correctly.

Previously with Plusnet, such IP lookups would report location as generally Sheffield or London - main Plusnet hubs, I guess. Did something change that now allows this exact pinpointing of local exchange on IP location look-ups?

[#2]

Are you logged into Google when you are checking these sites per chance? Either on a PC or Smartphone?

[#3]

Ah, now you made me think. I'm not logged in to google and I'm on a PC. But I did confirm an account to tumblr today, which involves giving them mobile phone number. They are owened by yahoo - or up until this week, they were.

So they would map the IP address to a mobile phone location, and make that location for that IP available to any IP lookup service in the world? WOW!

[#4]

Yep, nil privacy today. 

[#5]

Actually I was logged to microsoft outlook too, so could have been them.

But to test things, I just disconnected for twenty minutes to get myself a new IP address. Got one in a completely different IP range now, but IP look-ups still able to see my exact local town. Should that be possible after I get a new IP? Or maybe, the info got cookied somewhere?

[#6]

What are you using for the IP look-ups?

[#7]

I tried a number of things, with varying results. The first place I noticed it was tumblr, where the IP of your current session gets logged and it's location. I was really surprised to see my own small local town there. It's only ever said Sheffield or London. Same with other location look-up tools. Now it seems differing results with differing look up tools.

First test made (turn off router for 20 minutes to get a new IP) ... if type what is my location in google, both with an IP starting 209 (I think, it was) and currently 147.147.xxx.xxx, google my exact location correctly, complete with a map of my small town. Tumblr and whatismyipaddress.com in both cases also correctly report the exact location.

Some other look-up tools give results I'm more used to.

http://mylocation.org/ - reports my location as London

https://www.iplocation.net/find-ip-address - reports my location as Ellingham

So seems location is not transparent to all look up tools. But I've never seen my actual location reported in ANY IP location look up tool before. And now google, tumblr and whatismyipaddress.com can see my exact location even when I force getting a new IP address.

[#8]

That would suggest it is cookie based.

[#9]

Finally got some time to test this some more last night. Removed all cookies from PC with CCCleaner. Cleared cache. Disconnected a couple times to get new IPs. Same result each time. Google and tumblr still identify my exact town from the new IPs.

I ran a check at https://www.iplocation.net/, which proved interesting. Of the six or so Geolocation providers the site features, only ONE does what google and tumblr is managing now.

EurekAPI (Product: API, real-time) reports my real, very local location like google and tumblr now are. All the other providers report Plusnet hubs far away as location.

Am stumped about the difference.