I've been in Toronto for a week now, and I've noticed that Google behaves differently in Canada. If you attempt to hit www.google.com from a Canadian IP block, you get redirected to www.google.ca — which appears to be identical to Google.com, except that the page has a link to a French version of the site, and the option to search "Canadian" sites only (though this latter doesn't seem to have a firm handle on what a "Canadian" site is). It's kind of a cool hack — checking incoming IP addresses in realtime and redirecting Canadians to the Canadian version of the site, but it's also kind of a pain in the ass, as there is no obvious way to go back to plain old Google. It's not as if the Canadian Google is hosted in Canada (a traceroute suggests that www.google.ca is hosted in San Jose), and there is something a little creepy about being redirected like this, as this rant points out.
(Thanks, Kickstart!)
