Osano Detecting Wrong Location

How location is determined

Osano doesn't detect your location itself. It displays a banner based on the region reported for your connection by Amazon CloudFront, our content delivery network. If that region is wrong, it's almost always because the IP address you're connecting from is registered to a different country than where you physically are, typically resulting from the use of a VPN, proxy, or corporate network.

When a page loads, Osano reads the region that CloudFront reports for the connection and renders the matching consent banner. As AWS describes it:

"CloudFront determines the location of your users by using a third-party database. The accuracy of the mapping between IP addresses and countries varies by Region." — AWS CloudFront documentation

The banner you see is driven entirely by how your connection's IP address is classified in that database, but not by GPS, browser locale, or by anything you select in another app (including in the Osano UI).

Why this happens with VPNs, proxies, and corporate networks

If you're on a VPN, proxy, or a routed corporate/cloud network, your traffic exits through a server somewhere other than your physical location. CloudFront sees that exit server's IP address, not yours. Two things commonly go wrong:

• The exit server isn't where you think it is. Many VPNs register IP addresses to one region while the physical server sits in another. Selecting a location in a VPN app changes which server you use, but the registered region of that IP may not match meaning you can switch locations and still land in the same banner region.

• IP databases disagree. Different tools use different IP-geolocation databases, and VPN/proxy exit IPs are classified inconsistently and updated slowly. That's why an IP-lookup site may report your "correct" region while CloudFront reports a different one. The two databases simply don't agree on that address.

Any service that relies on CloudFront for location, like Osano, would also resolve to the same region.

How to test the region you actually want

The most reliable way to test a specific region is to turn off the VPN or proxy and connect from a network that is physically in the region you're checking. That removes the registered-IP mismatch entirely.

Still seeing the wrong region without a VPN?

If you're not on a VPN, proxy, or unusual network and the region still looks wrong, contact Osano Support with the region you expected, the banner format you're seeing, and the result of an IP-lookup tool from the same connection. That helps us confirm whether it's an IP-classification issue or something else.