I grew up in an English Speaking part of Canada, live in France and work mostly with the US. English is my preferred language and I prefer to consume most of my Internet browsing in English on US sites.
I setup my OS in English with the US in my regional settings. I told my browsers that I want to see sites in English before French.
Despite all this, companies are using geolocalization and redirecting me to their French sites.
Showing me French Advertising makes sense as I am shopping in France.
Redirecting me to French ecommerce sites also makes sense as I don’t want to go to the other side of the world to shop.
Why anyone else ignores my settings and says, overtly or implied, “we noticed you are in France, so we have redirected you to our French site” is beyond me. These sites are proud of having implemented geolocalisation and, to my frustration, it is becoming more common. I then have to spend (at least) five minutes trying to force my way back to the US site.
I am willing to bet that they are erroneously redirecting more people like me than helping people who mistakenly went to the wrong site using a browser setup incorrectly. Smart technology used in a way that implies that the user is too stupid to know what he is doing is plain stupid.
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