Hi David,
your questions:
1. If you are not able to configure the ModSecurity it's not a problem for the component working mode. Simply the SEO stats in the control panel won't be retrieved. In this case disable this feature in the configuration as shown in the image below.
2. Not sure to understand... this kind of URLs seems blocked by the ModSecurity but there are no alternatives to hit to fetch data. I remember that another user fixed it asking to the hosting provider, eventually i could ask them how they did it.
Regards
John
