Not sure how my phone number is being given to random sites but I’ve tested and they are. I can set my vpn to new york and visit solar sites. The next day I get spam calls from a New York area code. I set my vpn to Florida. The next day I’m getting car warrenty calls from Miami. Set it to Mexico and I’m getting international calls.
I’m using Firefox with ublock to stop ads and nord vpn. If I turn off vpn I get spam calls from my area code.
How are sites seeing my phone number when I don’t give it out or fill out forms on these sites?
Welcome! We’re here to help with any cybersecurity questions you may have. Get started protecting yourself online with these tools:
VPN - PrivadoVPN: VPN $1.48 Deal From PrivadoVPN | PrivadoVPN
Browser - Firefox: Get Firefox browser — Mozilla (US)
Password Manager - Bitwarden: Bitwarden Password Manager Pricing & Plans | Bitwarden
Search Engine - DuckDuckGo: About DuckDuckGo
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
This is not possible. There is no API or anyway for a website to automatically extract your phone number. It’s probably just a coincidence, but it’s possible your number is just being sold by data brokers to people who want to target by geolocation, and you are being tracked by those data brokers.
you signed in to Firefox somehow? like a Google account?
are you accepting cookies?
I don’t know how it works but it is definitely happening. 5 days in a row I switch my state on the vpn and the next day I was getting spam calls from that states area code. For today’s test I’ve disable cross site cookies, set tracking protection to strict, and I’m using a vpn in California to see if I get calls tomorrow from there
Signed in no, accepting cookies was on, I just turned off
Your device has a unique fingerprint, the cookie based stuff isn’t very effective.
what sites are you visiting?
I’ve never had phone calls from websites I’ve visited, and I’ve gone all over the interwebs…
you have your phone number saved somewhere in your browser so they can collect it
when you downloaded Firefox on to your phone, how did you download the app? Google play store? etc
Google play. The calls aren’t from the sites just general spam but they area codes are changing with the locations I’m setting the vpn to. Site are just from random search like “skyrim race perks” then click on first site and read. I just disabled cookies also
when you registered your Google account you uploaded your phone number
when you use the app from Google play it has your data stored and will pass it on
delete Firefox
delete Google play
download browser from the Web