One of my newspaper feeds hasn’t updated in several weeks. I get the following error:
HTTP/1.1 451 Unavailable For Legal Reasons
However, the feed opens normally in my browser or Yahoo RSS reader. How can that be? Here’s the link:
https://tucson.com/search/?f=rss&t=article&c=news/local&l=25&s=start_time&sd=desc
Possibly because of some form of rate-limiting or blocking, even though that’s the wrong HTTP code for it. My guess is geo-restrictions though.
I’d try changing the TT-RSS user agent (you could even use curl via SSH with a user agent from Firefox or Chrome, for example) and see if you get the same response.
If you have other servers, try using curl or wget from them to see if the code is similar.
Possibly because of some form of rate-limiting or blocking, even though that’s the wrong HTTP code for it.
Wrong code? Here is the page where the newspaper lists its feeds: http://tucson.com/rss/. It’s been a long time since I added any feeds to TT-RSS but I think I just right clicked on the desired feed (“Local News” in this case) and copied that into TT-RSS “subscribe to feed” dialogue box. But if the link is the wrong HTTP code, then how do I find the correct code?
I’d try chaning the TT-RSS user agent…
I access TT-RSS via Marc Gerges’ server so I can make any server changes. I thought I could change user agents in Preferences but it must have been removed in years past.
I’m not saying you provided the wrong code, I’m saying if the site is rate-limiting they are providing the wrong HTTP code. If they are geo-restricting you then it may very well be the correct code.
Anyway, if you don’t have access to the server there’s nothing for you to do. Report it to the person running the instance.
GDPR?
/20 charCharChar
Sure thing:
451: Unavailable for legal reasons
We recognise you are attempting to access this website from a country belonging to the European Economic Area (EEA) including the EU which enforces the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and therefore cannot grant you access at this time. For any issues, e-mail us at [email protected] or call us at 800-695-4492.
Ah, now I understand. I’m in the US, but Marc’s server is in Europe. That email and phone contact is helpful. I can see if the newspaper is willing to help. Thanks for your replies!
There’s hope yet. Here’s the reply I received from the newspaper:
"Hello, David,
“Unfortunately, the company that controls our content management system has put GDPR blocks in place. They say it’s temporary but we don’t have a date for when they’ll be lifted. In the meantime, your best bet is to use our apps, which you can find in the App Store or Google Play. We’re hoping this will be fixed soon. My apologies for the inconvenience.”
why would they imagine their apps being exempt from GDPR while their site isn’t
The apps she referred to are US based, so they wouldn’t be subject to GDPR. Instead, I just bookmarked the RSS link, and open in my browser. Of course, the problem with that is there’s no way to hide the headlines for articles I’ve already scanned.
Just reading through this :-
oh im fairly certain that’s not how it works
Me? I don’t have a clue how it works. I never heard the term GDPR before this discussion. My last comment was totally based on the other replies herein – in particular, the full error message text posted by mamil, and the response I received from the newspaper’s editor.
Assuming the the content apps she referred me to live on servers in the US (or anywhere other than the EU), then requests sent by those apps to the newspaper’s RSS server would not be denied. Likewise, any RSS reader that’s not based in the EU could serve up their RSS feeds to me. Or I can display them in my browser, in which case the request comes through my local ISP. I think what she’s saying is only requests from the EU are being blocked. Whether or not that’s an appropriate use of the 451 error is a different question.
What I find weird is that it’s impossible to collect private user information from RSS feeds because A) no cookies are sent, B) no JS is executed, and C) the IP address is that of the RSS-reader server, not the end user’s IP address. So why do these sites break their RSS feeds when accessed from Europe?
Oh, I know the answer. Incompetence.
A GET request for an RSS feed can just as easily include a cookie as a request for anything else on a web server. Anyway, they’re surely blocking all requests coming from some list of European ips, they’re not going to add another check to permit European requests if they don’t include cookies.
There’s a lot of uncertainty about whether an ip address is enough to count as personally identifying. The fact that the request for the feed is coming from a server is immaterial; to the hosting site, TTRSS on a server is just as much a client as a feed reader on a desktop or mobile device. The TTRSS server could also be used by a single individual (which is often the case) so the server’s ip address could be just as personal, if not more so, than the ip assigned to you at home by your ISP.
Yes, that’s technically possible. But are there any RSS clients that save and send back cookies by default?
I don’t know but it doesn’t matter, it’s all just HTTP.
Interesting idea. I just tried to set up a proxy for the feed linked in my original post. Unfortunately, I was stumped at the step where it asks to define the required “Item (repeatable) search pattern” macro. The “?” pop-up wasn’t very helpful, at least not for a noob like myself. If it’s not too much trouble, could you take a look? Feed43 New Feed