Google Chrome Referral Access issues

Google Chrome has introduced a security update starting with their version #85 onwards. 

This upgrade could have an impact on how your referral-based access method is behaving. Google Chrome now sets the referrer policy to "strict-origin-when-cross-origin" by default. 

This means that if a website hasn't specifically set a referrer policy when a user clicks on a link from your member portal to your journal's content or homepage hosted on Sage Journals the browser only sends the domain of your site rather than the full URL, as it has been the case until now. 

This will result in your member coming to Sage Journals unauthenticated and will therefore not have access to your journal(s).  

Full technical details about this change can be found on the following Google support page. Please pass this link on so your website administrator can make the necessary changes to your website: 

Info page: https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2020/07/referrer-policy-new-chrome-default 

If you require any further assistance, please contact us at onlinesupport@sagepub.co.uk