1760614 - On Firefox 99, the Amazon homepage requires a captcha and affects the amazon sponsored results

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Address Bar, defect)

Description

[Cosmin Muntean [:cmuntean], Ecosystem QA]

Attachment: something went wrong Amazon results - Beta 99.gif

[Notes]:

• I didn't manage to reproduce this issue on the latest Nightly 100.0a1 (Build ID: 20220321065848).
• I didn't manage to reproduce this on Firefox 98.0 release.
• I didn't manage to reproduce this issue on macOS or Linux.
• Not sure if only Firefox 99 is affected or the issue is intermittent and also other versions are affected.
• I have tried to find a regression range, but I can reproduce the issue only on Firefox 99 (Beta or Nightly). However, using mozregression tools I have obtained the following results:

Last good revision: 9212c99a00f195539b334c8cfea48786448969b0
First bad revision: 78719225247cfbe9c17c7a65deeeb29b4d931c15
INFO: Pushlog: [link](https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/pushloghtml?fromchange=9212c99a00f195539b334c8cfea48786448969b0&tochange=78719225247cfbe9c17c7a65deeeb29b4d931c15_

INFO: ************* Switching to autoland by process of elimination (no branch detected in commit message)
ERROR: Unable to exploit the merge commit. Origin branch is mozilla-central, and the commit message for 78719225 was:
Update configs. IGNORE BROKEN CHANGESETS CLOSED TREE NO BUG a=release ba=release~

[Affected Versions]:

• Firefox Beta 99.0b6.

[Affected Platforms]:

• Windows 10 x64

[Prerequisites]:

• Have a new Firefox profile with the following pref set:
• Have the "browser.search.region" pref set to "US".

[Steps to reproduce]:

1. Open Beta 99.0b6 with the profile from prerequisites.
2. Focus the Awesomebar and type "tv stands" and click the Amazon sponsored results.
3. Observe the loaded page.
4. Focus the Awesomebar and type "amazon.com" and press "Enter".
5. Observe the loaded page.

[Expected result]:
Step 3: The Amazon website is correctly loaded and a list with TV is displayed.
Step 5: The Amazon homepage is correctly loaded.

[Actual result]:
Step 3: The Amazon website is loaded but a "Something went wrong" message is displayed.
Step 5: The Amazon homepage requires a captcha.

[Additional Notes]:

• Attached is a screen recording of the issue.

Comment 1

[Nan Jiang [:nanj]]

This is a known issue with some of sponsored tiles and suggestions from Amazon which could trigger captcha to certain users, though we are not clear what particular condition(s) could trigger it for sure. I just verified in both nightly and beta, they both worked just fine. It was definitely not caused by Firefox but by a specific configuration enforced by Amazon's sites. We have communicated about this with our partner and they confirmed all the links from them should not be behind the captcha validation. Though Amazon can still show a captcha on their pages if they want.

There is little we can do within Firefox other than ask our partner and Amazon to lift captcha from the affiliated links they share with us. Therefore I will close this issue for now.