Can't access GMail through anonymous proxy

Is this to serve ads or as a new antispam mechanism?

[eWhisper]

Last week, I had technical issues resolving some of Google's IPs, so while everything was being cleaned up and fixed, I was using proxy's to access most Google properties (interesting to me, AdSense & AdWords logins always resolved).

If I tried to access GMail through an antonymous proxy, I got errors logging in, and a warning message from GMail that one wasn't allowed to connect to GMail through a proxy.

I only tried a dozen proxies, so it could have been just the ones I tried.

I can only think of two reasons Google would haves such restrictions.

1. They can't serve regional ads if they don't know where I'm located.
2. Spammers can't login to GMail through a proxy to hide their location.

Anyone with more of a tech background have any theories on this type of behavior?

[Lord Majestic]

3. They want to know your or your proxies real IP, thus banning all open proxies.

More or less real IP could be used for variety of purposes none of which in my mind is necessary for online mail service, definately not spamming as amount of mail send from a single account can be easily controlled.

The more I hear about gmail the less I like it - it will take them a long time to beat the kind of storage I've got at home ;)

[encyclo]

Also, you can get Javascript problems when connecting through an open proxy. Gmail is 100% Javascript-powered on the client side. If the open proxy does not send the user agent string, for example, then the browser-sniffing code won't function right and the whole page won't display.

As far as I can see, Gmail is not currently serving localized ads (it's still US only), so I don't think it's that.

[eWhisper]

As far as I can see, Gmail is not currently serving localized ads (it's still US only), so I don't think it's that.

FYI - Local ads is not U.S. only. See:
[webmasterworld.com...]

I've seen local ads on occasion. I think it's more related to Google testing the system then actually serving local ads on a consitent basis.

[Teknorat]

Did you try an elite proxy?