topic Why does domain "chatenabled.mail.google.com" show up in my "Domains" stats when all known Google accounts have chat DISabled? in OpenDNS

Why does domain "chatenabled.mail.google.com" show up in my "Domains" stats when all known Google accounts have chat DISabled?

lookingforsafety — Thu, 21 Aug 2014 01:23:21 GMT

I'm educated (master's level) but not nearly tech savvy enough to fully understand how to find the answer to this question. Please help if you can clarify.

All KNOWN Google accounts in our household have Gmail chat disabled. Nobody uses Google Hangouts or Google Voice. We are (supposedly) a no-chat, no-IM family outside of the native iPhone texting app; Facebook Messenger; and a few other apps used by my kids which are known to me. None of them SHOULD, I don't think, have anything to do with "chatenabled.mail.google.com."

Our router intercepts traffic for our OpenDNS IP from not just the laptop but also numerous iPhones, 2 iPads, etc. I don't know of any Google products being used on those devices which use chat, or can turn chat "on" while on the laptop and within user Gmail accounts, chat is shown as "off." The "I don't know of" part of that statement might be the most telling (I offer, sheepishly.) 🙂

I'd like to hear from someone who really understands this stuff why I keep seeing "chatenabled.mail.google.com" in my OpenDNS "Domain" stats if nobody is using Gmail chat.

Does the fact that this result keeps showing up mean that Gmail chat is ABSOLUTELY, NECESSARILY being accessed somewhere?

Or is this one of those domains which auto-loads, or loads from other Google products, even when chat is entirely disabled?

It's very important for the safety of our family that I understand with crystal clarity whether someone in our household is chatting secretly -- read, "has a secret Gmail account, too, in which chat may be active."

Please help if you can, in as much detail as you can. More information is better than less information.

I'm hoping for an answer that sounds something like, "No worries; "chatenabled.mail.google.com" can load for a variety of reasons and doesn't necessarily indicate anyone is chatting via a Google product."

If a different answer is more accurate, though, I'm ready to hear it; bring it!

Thanks in advance!

Re: Why does domain "chatenabled.mail.google.com" show up in my "Domains" stats when all known Google accounts have chat DISabled?

lookingforsafety — Thu, 21 Aug 2014 01:25:40 GMT

PS I tried to research this many times but couldn't find a definitive answer. And I owned my own deficits in tech know-how. So please be kind in your answer(s). Thanks. 🙂

Re: Why does domain "chatenabled.mail.google.com" show up in my "Domains" stats when all known Google accounts have chat DISabled?

rotblitz — Thu, 21 Aug 2014 13:45:20 GMT

"Why does domain "chatenabled.mail.google.com" show up in my "Domains" stats"

First of all, be aware, DNS lookups are not raised by humans, but by networking programs (unless a human executes a dig, nslookup, host or the likes). And there are more networking programs than just browsers. Second, most modern browsers have DNS prefetching enabled. This means they will query all and every domain they find in links on any web page, no matter if someone intends to ever visit them or if content needs to be loaded from those domains. These will appear in your OpenDNS stats then. You may want to consider disabling DNS prefetching in the browsers.

This is the general answer, no matter if you ask explicitly for chatenabled.mail.google.com or for any other domain name.

"Does the fact that this result keeps showing up mean that Gmail chat is ABSOLUTELY, NECESSARILY being accessed somewhere?" - No.

"Or is this one of those domains which auto-loads, or loads from other Google products, even when chat is entirely disabled?"

You had to technically research this or to ask Google to find out. Finally only Google can know.
There are related tools available, e.g. http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/dns_query_sniffer.html

"It's very important for the safety of our family that I understand with crystal clarity whether someone in our household is chatting secretly"

So does this chatenabled.mail.google.com show up as being blocked or not in your stats? If not, you many want to explicitly block it to find out if this hinders any other user's Google activities. If it shows up as blocked, nobody in your OpenDNS network could use it anyway, but you may want to explicitly whitelist it, as needed.

Re: Why does domain "chatenabled.mail.google.com" show up in my "Domains" stats when all known Google accounts have chat DISabled?

lookingforsafety — Thu, 21 Aug 2014 15:35:52 GMT

rotblitz: Thank you so much for this thorough, extremely helpful answer. I feel both informed and relieved. I'll do some further looking in the areas you suggested and return if I need more help. I appreciate you!