ADBLK-9: Block Google Play Log

Google seems to be tracking things like where Android users click on Google News and sending it to an endpoint under the Google Play domain:

play.google.com/log?format=json&hasfast=true

The POST is a (long, long) JSON array.

[[1,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,[null,null,null,null,"en",null,"boq_dotssplashserver_20190607.02_p1"]],241,[["1560445114424",null,[],null,null,null,null,"[1560445114414,[[\"2397168675742140944\",null,[[632,1]]],[\"16147638372540442232\",null,[[1175,1]]],[\"14719340685975485085\",null,[[2139,1]]],[\"17077408715954654437\",null,[[6733,1]]],[\"3318688667027929436\",null,[[1171,1]]],[\"5790177495296899286\",null,[[0,1]]],[\"16829267986558572790\",null,[[39,1]]],[\"16339156775003354937\",null,[[70,1]]],[\"749851692583976763\",null,[[822,1]]],[\"15419336178855610526\",null,[[294,1]]],[\"8257051839445688306\",null,[[6731,1]]],[\"7792735449360349632\",null,[[6733,1]]],[\"7094487270460551484\",null,[[94,1]]],[\"12563104964214410683\",null,[[6730,1]]],[\"15605813632677093659\",null,[[4488,1]]],[\"17914751415692637656\",null,[[18,1]]],[\"9797767207516844257\",null,[[8,1]]],[\"4553553160178503526\",null,[[4926,1]]],[\"15768337714740149157\",null,[[2936,1]]],[\"7099598553576769501\",null,[[0,1]]],[\"14906952326733574741\",null,[[2,1]]],[\"4891744519482609478\",null,[[447,1]]],[\"14307859671070593733\",null,[[318,1]]],[\"7494582641517049914\",null,[[1,1]]],[\"6667106912793420619\",null,[[75,1]]],[\"8147743178319688099\",null,[[6730,1]]],[\"13378126313938116970\",null,[[5583,1]]],[\"8519598536373642887\",null,[[0,1]]],[\"10118692516388306266\",null,[[1,1]]],[\"408159237941253787\",null,[[150,1]]],[\"476083397694989718\",null,[[150,1]]],[\"8791060314450143495\",null,[[1,1]]],[\"6342145065879578001\",null,[[16,1]]],[\"13596961294000664596\",null,[[4741,1]]],[\"2107494750385856652\",null,[[148,1]]],[\"1309831198388189068\",null,[[16,1]]],[\"13872498202689960064\",null,[[1,1]]]],null,null,\"[1,\\\"lszMMd_PL\\\"]\"]",null,null,null,1643849814,null,null,null,[null,[],null,"[[],[],[1709118],[]]"],null,null,null,[],1,null,null,null,null,null,[]]],"1560445114425",[],null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,0]

And periodically gets resent whenever you click somewhere

This gets sent to

There's also a POST to https://news.google.com/_/DotsSplashUi/browserinfo?f.sid=-4076287043254377427&bl=boq_dotssplashserver_20190607.02_p1&hl=en-GB&gl=GB&_reqid=464709&rt=j

(note the boq_dotssplashserver string, that's in the earlier psot too).

The POST data for this request is at least a little more concise

f.req=%5B9%2C2%2C1%2C%5Bnull%2C1080%2C1920%5D%2C%5Bnull%2C945%2C1920%5D%2C%5Bfalse%2Cfalse%2Ctrue%2Ctrue%5D%2C%5Bfalse%2C0%2C0%5D%5D&at=AKqDUn-TbjC8MXq3_5IU3WSxhKTX%3A1560445105644&

Which results in a response with content-type application/json but with a response body that looks like this

)]}'

[[["f.mt"]
,["di",29]
,["af.httprm",28,"7560588162509945946",13]
,["e",4,null,null,95]
]]

Tested blocking both with the following in ABP

||news.google.com/*/browserinfo*
||play.google.com/log?format=json&hasfast=true

No ill impact, so it seems that whatever they are, they're not essential for delivery of the requested content.