Data counter measures

• US 9,160,745 B1
• Filed: 05/21/2012
• Issued: 10/13/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 05/19/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Krux Digital Inc. (Salesforce.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Sullivan, Nick P., Vaidya, Vivek S., Chavez, Tom A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Shiferaw, Eleni
• Assistant Examiner(s): Elmore, Gregory M
• Application Number:
  US13/476,439
• Time in Patent Office: 1,240 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/08 for authentication of entities cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication H04L9/32
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/10 for controlling access to devices or network resources
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]

Abstract

Techniques to block unwanted third party calls are disclosed. In various embodiments, an indication is received that third party code included on a web page is attempting to write to the web page content associated with an unauthorized third party call. The unauthorized third party call is blocked. In some embodiments, the unauthorized third party call is blocked by blocking the web page content associated with the unauthorized third party call from being written to the web page.

Claims

1. A method of blocking unwanted calls, comprising:

generating, by an authorized third party code included on a web page, a third party call to a web server, wherein the third party call is associated with content that the authorized third party code is attempting to write to the web page;

intercepting the third party call from the authorized third party code included on the web server to the web server at least in part by overriding, by a control tag included in code of the web page, a behavior of a content writing function associated with the web page to inspect content before the content is written to the web page;

determining that the third party call is to an unauthorized third party; and

at least partially in response to determining that the third party call is to an unauthorized third party, blocking the third party call, at least in part by modifying data comprising a tag to cause the browser not to execute the third party call.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein blocking the third party call comprises blocking content associated with the unauthorized third party from being written to the web page.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the content associated with the unauthorized third party is blocked from being written to the web page at least in part by replacing the content associated with the unauthorized third party with other content not associated with any unauthorized third party.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the third party call comprises a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) request.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the authorized third party code included on the web page comprises hypertext markup language (HTML) code.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the authorized third party code included on the web page comprises JavaScript code.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the authorized third party code included on the web page comprises code that invokes a function to write content to the web page.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the authorized third party code included on the web page comprises JavaScript code that invokes a document write function of JavaScript.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the intercepting of the third party call includes intercepting a call to a function to write content to the web page.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein determining that the third party call is to an unauthorized third party includes parsing the call to determine a called source attribute.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein determining that the third party call is to an unauthorized third party further includes determining that the called source attribute is associated with the unauthorized third party.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein determining that the called source attribute is associated with the unauthorized third party includes comparing the called source attribute to a list of domains associated with one or more unauthorized third parties.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving, from a first party publisher associated with the web page, a second indication that the unauthorized third party is unauthorized.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein receiving from the first party publisher the second indication that the unauthorized third party is unauthorized includes receiving from the first party publisher an indication that the first party publisher desires to block third party calls associated with a class of third party with which the unauthorized third party is associated.

25. The method of claim 1, wherein determining that the third party call is to the unauthorized third party comprises:

updating, using a control tag included in code of the web page, a list of unauthorized third parties;

extracting a domain attribute from a tag associated with the third party call; and

determining that the domain attribute extracted from the tag is associated with the unauthorized third party in the list of unauthorized third parties.

26. The method of claim 25, wherein extracting the domain attribute comprises:

identifying an open tag included in the tag associated with the third party call;

parsing the tag to identify the domain attribute; and

extracting the domain attribute.

27. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

reporting the blocking of the third party call to a publisher of the web page.

28. The method of claim 27, wherein the reporting of the blocking of the third party call includes sending information associated with the blocking of the third party call to a data counter measures service provider.

15. A system to block unwanted calls, comprising:

a processor configured to;

generate, by an authorized third party code included on a web page, a third party call to a web server, wherein the third party call is associated with content that the authorized third party code is attempting to write to the web page;

intercept the third party call from the authorized third party code included on the web server to the web server at least in part by overriding, by a control tag included in code of the web page, a behavior of a content writing function associated with the web page to inspect content before the content is written to the web page;

determine that the third party call is to an unauthorized third party; and

at least partially in response to determining that the third party call is to an unauthorized third party, block the third party call, at least in part by modifying data comprising a tag to cause the browser not to execute the third party call; and

a memory coupled to the processor and configured to provide the processor with instructions.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein to block third party call the processor is further configured to block content associated with the unauthorized third party from being written to the web page.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the content associated with the unauthorized third party is blocked from being written to the web page at least in part by replacing the content associated with the unauthorized third party with other content not associated with any unauthorized third party.

18. The system of claim 15, wherein the third party call comprises a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) request.

19. The system of claim 15, wherein to receive the indication the processor is further configured to intercept a call to a function to write content to the web page.

20. A computer program product to block unwanted calls, the computer program product being embodied in a tangible, non-transitory computer readable storage medium and comprising computer instructions for:

generating, by an authorized third party code included on a web page, a third party call to a web server, wherein the third party call is associated with content that the authorized third party code is attempting to write to the web page;

intercepting the third party call from the authorized third party code included on the web server to the web server at least in part by overriding, by a control tag included in code of the web page, a behavior of a content writing function associated with the web page to inspect content before the content is written to the web page;

determining that the third party call is to an unauthorized third party; and

at least partially in response to determining that the third party call is to an unauthorized third party, blocking the third party call, at least in part by modifying data comprising a tag to cause the browser not to execute the third party call.

21. The computer program product of claim 20, wherein blocking the third party call comprises blocking content associated with the unauthorized third party from being written to the web page.

22. The computer program product of claim 21, wherein the content associated with the unauthorized third party is blocked from being written to the web page at least in part by replacing the content associated with the unauthorized third party with other content not associated with any unauthorized third party.

23. The computer program product of claim 20, wherein the authorized third party code included on the web page comprises code that invokes a function to write content to the web page.

24. The computer program product of claim 20, wherein the intercepting of the third party call includes intercepting a call to a function to write content to the web page.