Add a way to indicate to the API that queries are from a server and that the IP should not be used as an indication of the country of a product

[stephanegigandet]

What

From @blazern :

• "I proxy all mutating requests to OFF from my mobile app through my server.
• The server is located in the Netherlands.
• As an unexpected consequences, OFF automatically adds the Netherlands to the list of countries where the modified products is sold."

Proposed solution

• We could add an API parameter, e.g. query_source=server, that would tell us to not use the country of the IP address making the request to try to detect the country of a product.

Alternatives considered

We could try to differentiate client IP ranges from server IP ranges, but that's likely to be error prone.

[alexgarel]

Is that a requirements to set this kind of info ? Or, in doubt, could we avoid it ?

Because I would go for an opt-in in this case:

1. letting the app tell the country
2. or having a parameter telling we want to use "autodetection" by ip. Or alternatively a parameter named direct_use to tell the server that the client is using the API directly, so that if we make assumptions based on this fact (like setting country based on ip)

I will then change OFF web app to use this parameter. And we may add some exceptions in the code for knows apps, to set parameter automatically.

[stephanegigandet]

@alexgarel good idea.

For 1, we already have a cc (country code) parameter for the API.

For 2, I would go with a very specific parameter name, like use_ip_address_to_detect_country. A bit long but at least it's very clear what it does.

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