Our external IP is registered with ARIN as a US address, and iplocation.net shows a geolocation of the US.
However, any computer inside the network and connected to the VPN gets redirected to Sweden, notably google sites.
Does Mikrotik routers have the ability to alter the Geolocation data? if so, how do I force it back to the US?
How do devices access internet, through a local gateway? Or through the VPN?
Internal devices connect through the gateway. VPN users connect via pptp and then out through the same gateway.
There is no geolocation data in IP packets, so the Mikrotik can’t be responsible directly…
Basically, either the database that Google’s using to geolocate your IP has erroneous data in it, or else your VPN users are connecting with split tunneling, meaning that their outbound connections to the Internet in general aren’t going through the Mikrotik at all (have them visit a few “what is my IP address” sites like ipchicken.com, ipquail.com, myipaddress.com, etc to confirm this is true or not)
If they’re showing up as your Mikrotik’s wan IP, then this means that the geolocation database has errors in it.
I was impressed at how fast these databases zeroed in on where our new public IP was located when we got an allocation from ARIN. As the network administrator, I know for a fact that we never submitted our addresses (multi-site campuses) to any geolocation service, yet they were quick to learn which addresses come from our HQ’s city, vs one of the sites in other states - and they’re all using the same class-C range.
I suspect that meta data is being collected, such as search terms, or sites that have users voluntarily give their location such as “find the nearest store, here is my postal code”) by browsers, plugins, and advertisers. Interestingly, if you have users in Sweden who are active on the Internet with your office’s IP address, perhaps its these stealth collection methods that are leading providers to think you’re in Sweden. (in a sense, they’d be correct since they’re getting requests for local services in sweden coming from your IP address - so it must be in sweden, right?)
Interestingly, Netflix told me to go away when I tried viewing content from the 6to4 address range based on my IPv4 address… but the same laptop worked fine with Netflix using the IPv6 at my house (native-fed) - which is amusing since the geolocation data should be the same for 2002:aabb:ccdd::/48 (your IP address is coded in aabb:ccdd)
A friend actually contacted a geolocation provider to update their data on behalf of one of his customers whose geolocation data was wrong and it was affecting their business in a specific way. The provider was more than happy to update their database, as they want it to be as correct as possible for their customers’ use. If your users are indeed surfing with your office IP, then perhaps you could find a way to update Google as to your location (or whatever geolocation DB service is wrong about your whereabouts).