Helpdesk (forum)

#172 Check IP Address, if this option not used, how much Fingerprint & cookie option is reliable to prevent unfair voting?

Posted in ‘NorrCompetition’

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Latest post by sulpher on Monday, 16 June 2025 18:32 EEST

Monday, 16 June 2025 17:52 EEST

abhaydemapure

Hi,

Check IP Address, if this option not used, how much/which one among Fingerprint, tracking data & cookie option is reliable to prevent unfair voting? Also, what is less sensitive (in case of data breach and privacy concerns) among them to use for contests. Obviously you can its our choice which one to use, but as you people are more experienced in this, i want your views on it.

Also,

this is not part of your services but can you suggest some server options or data protection techniques which are more relible to use to run contest. this information may be useful for many of us using your extension to run a successful voting contest website for long term.

Monday, 16 June 2025 18:32 EEST

sulpher

Hi Abhay,

Actually, the best protection from fraud votes is to allow registered users to vote or vote via SMS.

If we talk about guests, there is no the best protection. However, if you enable additional checking like Check IP Address, it is an additional protection layer. If you disable it, then your site gets one less layer.

As for privacy, even user IP is considered as a privacy data. So, it is better to prepare Privacy Policy on the site.

Server configuration: it depends on you. For instance, you can limit access to visitors outside of your country or block some bots. But it is better to delegate to a person who knows what to do. As for my opinion, it is all useless since usually fraud votes can be runned inside of your country and in most cases, it is a user who want to support their friend/relatives and use different gadgets to vote. So, Fingerprint can help in such a way. But there is no 100% guarantee. That's why each vote gets score (when you review votes, you will see it).

Best regards,
Eugene