Can I disable *all* language customization from the Play Store?

[IronMew]

I'm Italian, but on the computer I do everything in English. I also don't particularly like my country's culture, literature or the language itself. And if that wasn't enough I also studied as a translator, which made me hate all translations universally.

I set the play store to Language: English. I also set my search results to English only (I have a separate Firefox setting for the rare occasions in which I need google.it). I even disabled Firefox's geolocation.

And yet, the "top free" books section of the store insists on foisting Italian books on me. There are a bunch of English-language ones in the list, but the others are all by Italian authors or Italian translations of English ones. I emphatically do not want this. How do I turn it off?

 

[mikedt]

You're probably getting all the e-books that are licensed for Italy. The publishers impose geographic restrictions on what's available and where.

I get a similar thing, I've got the Google Play store set to English, but I only get content that's licensed and is available in China, which means NO e-books at all in the Play store. Let's just say I get my e-books from other sources.

 

[IronMew]

That's possible. On the other hand, parts of the store itself - some of which don't concern books at all - are still in Italian when they definitely shouldn't be.

 

[mikedt]

It's not really any better for me unfortunately. Language definitely set to English. Google account originally created in the UK as well.

As I'm in China, it just assumes I want Chinese things. #1 app Tencent QQ.

Doesn't seem to be any way of overriding it either. With Apple's iTunes Store you can select which country's iTunes Store you want to look at, and provided you have a credit card for that country, you're good to go. Not so with Google Play.

 

[IronMew]

Thanks. I'm going to try a US-based proxy, but I shouldn't need to go to all this trouble. This continuing tendency of Google to babysit its users is starting to seriously get on my nerves.

 

[mikedt]

Thanks. I'm going to try a US-based proxy, but I shouldn't need to go to all this trouble.

I tried using a US and a UK proxy with Play, but I think the "China Telecom Ampe A76" was still giving the game away somewhat.

This continuing tendency of Google to babysit its users is starting to seriously get on my nerves.

I don't think it's entirely the fault of Google. It also has a lot to do with the content producers, book publishers, Hollywood, record companies, etc. imposing DRM and country restrictions on who can distribute their content and where.

To be totally frank, I think it just encourages piracy. I used to be a paying subscriber of Audible audiobooks, until I moved to China and that was the end of that.