I recently started having the same issue with a particular website and I found only one related article about it. Copied below (not my content - I claim no rights nor responsibilities - please verify information on your own/at own risk, etc. etc.)
Buckle up, this is going to be an interesting one. A few weeks ago, I started getting errors like this visiting web sites like McDonalds, Costco, Meijer, Pick ‘n Save:
Access Denied
You don’t have permission to access “http://www.costco.com/?” on this server.
Reference #18.1371ca17.1714195696.247b9298
https://errors.edgesuite.net/18.1371ca17.1714195696.247b9298
Odd. I started looking around on the Internet which lead me to this thread on the Verizon FIOS site: https://community.verizon.com/t5/Fios-Internet-and-High-Speed/multiple-websites-quot-access-denied-quot-over-verizon-Fios/td-p/1746618
Reading through the thread, I found a post by smith6612 pointing to this link: https://www.akamai.com/us/en/clientrep-lookup/. I went and checked my IP address: it was listed as a web scrapper. These companies use Akamai as a CDN (Content Distribution Network) and according to the store IT support, my IP address was listed as a 10/10 or a very bad IP address in Akamai.
If I used a VPN, I could then access these sites just fine, because I was using a different IP address, but this is a not good long term solution. I attempted to contact Akamai to remove my IP address, but in so many terms, they told me to go pound sand as I was not their customer.
After contacting Spectrum technical support, they suggested a get a new cable modem which should give me a new IP address. I did so and….same IP address. ARGH! Anyways, I was already prepared with a plan B: it appears that if you change the MAC access of your router slightly, even by 1 character, Spectrum will see this as a new router and will give you a different IP address.
I changed the MAC address on the router and restarted the router and the cable modem: I was granted a new IP address! This new IP address was not blacklisted by Akamai.
The option to change a MAC address will vary by router model, but the TP-LINK AX5400 lets you change the MAC address in the router’s web GUI. The other option suggested by Spectrum was to leave the cable modem turned off for 24 hours (for the DHCP lease to expire) and then plug it back in, but that option may not be viable for many people unless you have some type of backup Internet option like a hotspot.
Changing my router’s MAC address and getting a new IP address worked for 24 hours before I was banned again. Not sure why, I removed some extensions from Chrome and tried a new IP address.
It appears after 4 days of removing several Chrome extensions I wasn’t actively using, it’s finally resolved. I suspect it may have to due to 2 Chrome extensions I had loaded in the past: one called “DownloadThemAll!” and another called “Video Download Helper”. I had used DownloadThemAll! to download some audio files from a website (freely available on said website) several months ago. I didn’t want to click 60+ individual links to download them, I wanted to click once and do it batch mode style. My theory is one of the websites I visit was using Akamai’s CDN service saw these extensions loaded in my browser and just assumed I was a bad actor, even though I wasn’t actively using the tools on their website and added me to a naughty list, which was then shared to the rest of Akamai’s customers and thus I was blocked from many websites.
I anticipate that some people may try to leave a comment on this post asking for help on changing your router’s MAC address: please do not. All post comments go through moderation (to prevent spam) and I rarely check the moderation queue unless I am logging into this site as an administrator. This blog is not a tech support helpdesk, please post your question on changing your router’s MAC address here instead: https://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport/.
If you have any other helpful tips or interesting stories on this topic, feel free to leave those as comments and they will be approved depending on their quality.
-Soli Deo Gloria
