GOG.com No Longer Using IP Addresses For Customer Locations

Good Old Games, the digital distribution website for DRM-free classic PC games, has detailed a new privacy policy which will no longer use IP addresses to determine a customer's location. The company said that it "has always been about trusting the user", and that the policy change is due to "a number of issues" that apparently arise when using a customer's IP address to work out which region the user is currently residing in. Although it is not specifically stated, the press release hints that the new policy is in aid of Australian users who cannot order upcoming title Witcher 2 due to Australian censoring of the game. Guillaume Rambourg, managing director of GOG.com, said, "We’ve come to the conclusion that there are a number of issues with using a customer’s IP address to determine what offer they are being presented with from GOG.com. A good number of users can find themselves negatively impacted by a policy of using geo IP to set their region." "We only need to know the country that you’re making this purchase from, so although we originally planned to use geo-IP to determine user’s location, we’ve decided to trust our users and let them inform us as to the correct region for their purchase." The digital distribution site suggests that those users having issues with their country's location should update their information in the settings on the site.