ADBLK-9: Block Google Play Log



Issue Information

Issue Type: Improvement
 
Priority: Major
Status: Closed

Reported By:
Ben Tasker
Assigned To:
Ben Tasker
Project: Adblock Lists (ADBLK)
Resolution: Done (2019-06-13 18:07:55)

Created: 2019-06-13 18:03:19
Time Spent Working


Description
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.


Toggle State Changes

Activity


No sign of these requests when the user-agent isn't set to be an phone. Visible when user-agent is set for Iphone or for an Android phone

Repo: adblocklists
Commit: b5b6b1439841e8ca01cfcae4d15ee4ff715c7e35
Author: B Tasker <github@<Domain Hidden>>

Date: Thu Jun 13 18:04:22 2019 +0100
Commit Message: ADBLK-9 Block a couple of endpoints the Google News makes XHR requests to when it believes the client is an Android phone.



Modified (-)(+)
-------
config/manualpages.txt




Webhook User-Agent

GitHub-Hookshot/02d43f3


View Commit

btasker changed status from 'Open' to 'Resolved'
btasker added 'Ben Tasker' to assignee
btasker added 'Done' to resolution
btasker changed status from 'Resolved' to 'Closed'