How does a website manage to recognize a specific android device?

[Jim Le Gros]

It appears that some naughty activity has resulted in one of our Android devices getting blocked or banned from a section of a specific website; If we use other devices we have access, I have also proved that the ban is specific to one device, other windows and iOS systems can log on to the website pages normally, so it's not identifying IP address or a specific browser installation either.
So my question is what is it that a website can recognize from our andoid device/system to enable blocking our access?
Thanks in advance.

 

[djrakowski]

What happens when you attempt to access the site from that device - does it generate an error message?

I suppose a site could place a cookie on the device that signals it to deny access the next time an attempt is made to visit it.

Or, does this site use login credentials? If so, the user could be blocked rather than the device.

 

[Jim Le Gros]

Thanks for taking an interest; It doesn't seem to be the log in credentials/account that gets blocked, as that still works on other devices!
It's not an error message we get, it just says that"you are banned from this page".

 

[djrakowski]

Thanks for taking an interest; It doesn't seem to be the log in credentials/account that gets blocked, as that still works on other devices!
It's not an error message we get, it just says that"you are banned from this page".

You're welcome!

Sounds like there's a cookie on the device. You could try clearing cookies from within the browser's settings menu. In Google Chrome, that's under the three-dots menu, Settings->Privacy->Clear browsing data. Or you could clear data for that specific site in Settings->Site settings->All sites, then look for the site with which you're having problems, tap it, then "Clear & Reset."

 

[Mooncatt]

Have you tried contacting the site for help? Just sounds extremely odd that a device itself would be blocked, rather than a specific user.

 

[TwitchyPuppy]

They most probably blocked the device MAC address.