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Maniphest T244699

Find alternative to Special:HideBanners cookies to mitigate the loss of 3rd-party cookie support
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Description

Safari is already blocking 3rd-party cookies, Chrome and Firefox have short-term plans to drop them. This means that all fundraising pages that are not hosted on a wikipedia.org or wikimedia.org domain (for example spenden.wikimedia.de) won't be able to request the Special:HideBanners page on their donation confirmation page.

This ticket is a placeholder to bring the matter to the attention of the CentralNotice devs. I have two ideas how the loss of 3rd-party cookies could be mitigated, but it needs much more thought and decision-making:

  • Add a "secure redirect" feature to "Special:HideBanners": The requesting fundraising site redirects the user to wikipedia, with a return URL. The redirect HTTP request from wikipedia contains a cookie. To avoid redirecting to malicious sites, we'd need some mechanism for whitelisting the allowed domains.
  • A yet-to-be-published new browser API that allows for cross-site logins

Details

Related Changes in Gerrit:
SubjectAuthorRepoBranchLines +/-
Set banner hide cookies to Secure / SameSite=NoneEjeggmediawiki/extensions/CentralNoticemaster+8 -5
Customize query in gerrit

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Event Timeline

gabriel-wmde created this task.Feb 10 2020, 9:40 AM
Restricted Application added a subscriber: Aklapper. · View Herald TranscriptFeb 10 2020, 9:40 AM
gabriel-wmde mentioned this in T117433: Spike: Investigate alternatives to Special:HideBanners cookie storm for cross-domain banner close-button.Feb 10 2020, 9:42 AM
gabriel-wmde mentioned this in T243616: Prevent banner display on wikipedia.de after a user performed a specific action.Feb 10 2020, 10:07 AM
Pcoombe mentioned this in T235204: Future version of Chrome might break Special:HideBanners cookies.Feb 12 2020, 5:40 PM
Pcoombe added a project: Fundraising-Backlog.Feb 14 2020, 5:50 PM
Pcoombe subscribed.
• DStrine renamed this task from Find alternative to Special:HideBanners cookies to mitigate the loss of 3rd-party cookie support to investigate: Find alternative to Special:HideBanners cookies to mitigate the loss of 3rd-party cookie support.Feb 18 2020, 9:06 PM
• DStrine moved this task from Triage to Current Sprint on the Fundraising-Backlog board.
• DStrine merged a task: T235204: Future version of Chrome might break Special:HideBanners cookies.Feb 18 2020, 9:09 PM
• DStrine added subscribers: jgleeson, MBeat33, spatton, Ejegg.
• DStrine added a project: Fundraising Sprint CAPS LOCK CULTS.Feb 18 2020, 9:30 PM
• DStrine removed a project: Fundraising Sprint CAPS LOCK CULTS.Feb 18 2020, 9:31 PM
• DStrine added a project: Fundraising Sprint Dampness.Feb 18 2020, 9:32 PM
• DStrine removed a project: Fundraising Sprint Dampness.Feb 25 2020, 8:53 PM
• DStrine moved this task from Current Sprint to Sprint +1 on the Fundraising-Backlog board.
• DStrine moved this task from Sprint +1 to Next on the Fundraising-Backlog board.Mar 3 2020, 3:52 PM
• DStrine moved this task from Next to Sprint +1 on the Fundraising-Backlog board.Mar 31 2020, 4:41 PM
• DStrine mentioned this in T249017: Planning ahead tasks for sprint H 2020.
• DStrine moved this task from Sprint +1 to Current Sprint on the Fundraising-Backlog board.Mar 31 2020, 8:05 PM
• DStrine added a project: fundraising Sprint Grep works IRL.Mar 31 2020, 8:22 PM
Ejegg added a comment.EditedApr 1 2020, 4:34 PM

The exception for Safari - the 'Storage Access API' - only works for iframe with user interaction, for example clicking a 'like' button. So that won't work for us.

To hide Wikipedia fundraising banners on TY pages, the simplest solution would be to redirect users through Wikipedia and set a cookie there (the 'secure redirect' mentioned by @gabriel-wmde)

  • Donor returns to payments-wiki after payment
  • gets redirected to <lang>.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:HideBanners?category=fundraising&redirect=https://donate.wikimedia.org/wiki/Thank_you/<lang>
  • HideBanners sets hide cookie for fundraising, checks that donate.wikimedia.org is in list of allowed redirects, sends user there
  • User sees thank you page.

TY pages will take a brief moment longer to load but banners will still be hidden in every browser.

The harder problem is hiding e.g. community banners across multiple projects. We could conceivably use a sort-lived user preference for hiding things for logged-in users, since those are the users most likely to be seeing community banners on multiple sites.

spatton added a comment.Apr 1 2020, 5:21 PM

Thanks for managing this, @Ejegg. I'm also thinking about the monthly convert modal that we implemented as a "post-payment" option for one-time donors (right now only integrated for Ingenico).

When we realized the likelihood of some donors seeing the modal and just closing the browser tab, thereby preventing them from hitting the TY page and getting the typical hide cookie, we started setting the hide cookie when the modal pops up.

We're losing that option now too, right?

Quiddity subscribed.Apr 9 2020, 4:38 AM
• mepps moved this task from Backlog to Pending Deployment on the fundraising Sprint Grep works IRL board.Apr 13 2020, 5:23 PM
• DStrine added a project: Fundraising Sprint Heaven is a page on Wikipedia.Apr 14 2020, 8:32 PM
jgleeson moved this task from Backlog to Doing on the Fundraising Sprint Heaven is a page on Wikipedia board.Apr 20 2020, 4:24 PM
• DStrine removed a project: Fundraising Sprint Heaven is a page on Wikipedia.Apr 20 2020, 8:12 PM
• DStrine moved this task from Current Sprint to Q3 2021-2022 on the Fundraising-Backlog board.
• DStrine subscribed.Apr 20 2020, 9:10 PM

@spatton yes we will loose that option too. I think the best solution for now is a redirect. I'm sending an email on this.

• TSkaff subscribed.Apr 21 2020, 2:17 AM
• jbolorinos-ctr subscribed.Apr 21 2020, 6:28 PM
• DStrine added a comment.Apr 22 2020, 5:08 PM

correction. It is technically possible to add in redirects in the modal flows but this also increases friction in this flow.

• DStrine renamed this task from investigate: Find alternative to Special:HideBanners cookies to mitigate the loss of 3rd-party cookie support to EPIC: Find alternative to Special:HideBanners cookies to mitigate the loss of 3rd-party cookie support.May 4 2020, 4:16 PM
• DStrine added a project: Epic.
Quiddity edited subscribers, added: • Jseddon; removed: Quiddity.Jul 10 2020, 7:22 PM
• EYener subscribed.Jul 13 2020, 12:18 PM
Tgr subscribed.Jul 14 2020, 3:49 PM
• DStrine closed subtask T251780: TY pages in a subdomain of wikipedia and set hide banner cookie as Resolved.Jul 21 2020, 7:05 PM
Krinkle reopened subtask T251780: TY pages in a subdomain of wikipedia and set hide banner cookie as Open.Jul 23 2020, 1:41 PM
• DStrine closed subtask T251780: TY pages in a subdomain of wikipedia and set hide banner cookie as Declined.Aug 31 2020, 10:04 PM
• DStrine reopened subtask T251780: TY pages in a subdomain of wikipedia and set hide banner cookie as Open.Aug 31 2020, 11:02 PM
Pcoombe closed subtask T251780: TY pages in a subdomain of wikipedia and set hide banner cookie as Resolved.Sep 10 2020, 2:36 PM
Nemo_bis subscribed.Jun 14 2022, 2:06 PM

Should this be linked to https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T255366 ?

XenoRyet moved this task from Q3 2021-2022 to Unscheduled on the Fundraising-Backlog board.Mar 14 2023, 10:08 PM
Pcoombe mentioned this in T344381: Unique Devices seasonal trends on small projects.Aug 25 2023, 4:28 PM
Tgr added a parent task: T345245: Mitigate phase-out of third-party cookies in Wikimedia production.Nov 13 2024, 1:18 PM
Arendpieter renamed this task from EPIC: Find alternative to Special:HideBanners cookies to mitigate the loss of 3rd-party cookie support to Find alternative to Special:HideBanners cookies to mitigate the loss of 3rd-party cookie support.Jan 30 2025, 12:03 AM
Arendpieter edited projects, added: SUL3; removed: Epic.
Pppery edited projects, added: Epic; removed: SUL3.Jan 30 2025, 12:19 AM
gerritbot added a comment.Aug 19 2025, 4:04 PM

Change #1180165 had a related patch set uploaded (by Ejegg; author: Ejegg):

[mediawiki/extensions/CentralNotice@master] Set banner hide cookies to Secure / SameSite=None

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1180165

gerritbot added a project: Patch-For-Review.Aug 19 2025, 4:04 PM
gerritbot added a comment.Aug 21 2025, 4:15 PM

Change #1180165 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/CentralNotice@master] Set banner hide cookies to Secure / SameSite=None

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1180165

Maintenance_bot removed a project: Patch-For-Review.Aug 21 2025, 4:32 PM
ReleaseTaggerBot added a project: MW-1.45-notes (1.45.0-wmf.16; 2025-08-26).Aug 21 2025, 5:00 PM
gerritbot added a comment.Sep 9 2025, 10:12 PM

Change #1186618 had a related patch set uploaded (by Ejegg; author: Ejegg):

[mediawiki/extensions/CentralNotice@master] Set banner hide cookies to Secure / SameSite=None

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1186618

gerritbot added a project: Patch-For-Review.Sep 9 2025, 10:12 PM
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