I am not surprised that Google took this down when reported for copyright/IP violation (whether true or made up) and that emails from a relatively small project are only getting canned responses (I wish it were different, but realistically Google is not going to change). I think the only way to change this is to get advocacy online to get noticed. And as someone else said, if you build plugins for a company-managed software, you are at their mercy WRT to disabling it at any time (the same is true for a community-based software as well, but the process is usually transparent and more aligned with users and developers needs -- no blanket "because copyright" rejections).
How Google obliterated my 4 year old Chrome extension featuring 24k+ users
91–100 of 252 posts
Re: How Google obliterated my 4 year old Chrome extension featuring 24k+ users
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
anecdotally, you can get good support if you're a customer, but there's a big difference between a customer and a user. I've heard (not confirmed personally, just overheard at conferences), that if you spend enough on adwords to register on their radar as a customer, things are easy to get sorted even if they're nowhere adwords related. the big difference is that for the most part, google users/developers/... are not…
I can reassure you, as a Google Apps for Business customer, that they treat their paying customers with every bit the same contempt as they treat their free end users.
Is it a sarcasm ?
Re: How Google obliterated my 4 year old Chrome extension featuring 24k+ users
#93Not providing any meaningful support is Google's business model - you can see them talk about it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bU0Z_HAzO3I > Google estimates that they would need to hire over 20,000 customer service people to deal with 1 query every three years from each customer. So it has decided - as far as possible - to employ zero people and rely on algorithms. https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2013/02/googles-custo…
It makes sense not to have humans responding about how their site is indexed or removed, because that's pretty much everyone. However, they should really consider hiring support staff for: * Their paying customers * The partners bringing value to their products, typically extension developers and Android app developers
Products that make google money that you have to pay for have some amazing support. Cloud and Adwords being 2 examples. As you go through the sign up flow, they give you a phone number to call if you have any questions.
As a software engineer at Google, I have handled a few bugs or issues that originated from customers calling our support lines.
Re: How Google obliterated my 4 year old Chrome extension featuring 24k+ users
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is a larger pattern here. Is there any large B2C web service that's not monetized by selling the users' data (for advertisement targeting etc.)? For example, I would absolutely love to pay a monthly fee to Twitter (say, 3-5€) in exchange for an ad-free, unmodified, chronological timeline. And I would also consider paying something (say, 10€ a month) to Google in exchange for an ad-free search site that does not…
My guess here is that the subset of users who would be willing to pay a monthly subscription is strongly correlated with the subset that advertisers are interested in targeting most. If a site got say 10% of users to pay a subscription, their value to advertisers - and hence their advertising revenue - might drop a lot more than 10%, leaving them with a net loss.
That's a good point, but it also seems strongly correlated with those that run ad/privacy blockers. (Even with such a blocker, perhaps the data collected is still valuable, though?) My instinct is that by selling an ad and tracking-free site, they would be indicating that the ads and tracking are a bad thing, as opposed to the party line that it's all "to deliver better services to you".
Re: How Google obliterated my 4 year old Chrome extension featuring 24k+ users
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
Great. Now they should offer the same for the search engine.
I think you can? https://contributor.google.com . Not that I’ve tried it - I’m not allowed to in the UK.
I get this error when I try to sign-up : Error fetching data. Please try again later.
Re: How Google obliterated my 4 year old Chrome extension featuring 24k+ users
#96Google went from 'do no evil' to 'do no support'. It feels like talking to a refrigerator when you desperately need support for a service you are paying for. Been there, done that I will never rely on google for anything remotely useful again (apart from www searches).
Re: How Google obliterated my 4 year old Chrome extension featuring 24k+ users
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do agree that any service might honor the takedown request for the registered trademark infringement. But what the author refers to is completely another issue: the complete lack of support from Google. The extension author complied with the request. Tried to contact several times an only got canned responses. I guess Google doesn't care much about people that develop for their platform. At least that's what I got…
The problem is that the author used the wrong example to make that point. This issue was entirely on the developer and at this point in the web/mobile/app game I have to believe he really didn't want to understand what the issue was and was just trying to get some attention with that post. Let's pretend Google actually had great developer support (remember: we're pretending here) which was staffed to whatever degree…
Your point would be valid if the author hadn't pointed out that the same issue was resolved properly by Apple within three days (by renaming to "Cleaner - for Facebook"). My understanding is that Apple is bound by the same laws as Google when it comes to trademarks and IP.
So you do not have to pretend here: If Google had developer support that would be as good as Apple's (which I believe is a very low bar considering all the anger Apple is getting about how they treat developers), the extension would still be in the Chrome App Store and doing just fine.
Re: How Google obliterated my 4 year old Chrome extension featuring 24k+ users
#98What you are doing not only violated Facebook's trademark (good luck calling it fair use), but it's also against Facebook's ToS. They have actively gone after extension authors who alter the Facebook experience and even deactivated their accounts. Rightly or wrongly, when you sign up to a service you are bound by the conditions they set out. In this case, making an extension to block advertising is probably not going…
Bound to / enforced by whom?
FB ToS do not exist in a vacuum, which is why they always include "if a section is invalid others remain" or some such. Not sure about which jurisdiction the user / you are in, but in most areas signing up for a service does not obligate one to watch the ads (e.g., on TV one can turn away, turn off sound, blank screen, etc.).
I very much doubt that FB wants to fight, in courts, the person's ability to block ads on his personally owned display (both for bad PR and for uncertain outcome), thus their preferred response seems to be technological (make it harder or disable account they dislike) rather than legal.
Re: How Google obliterated my 4 year old Chrome extension featuring 24k+ users
#99Over 1 month and counting to update a Google Web Font (Mada) https://github.com/khaledhosny/mada/issues/11#issuecomment-2...
Sorry to say, but don't get your hopes up... It seems like Google doesn't care about ever updating the fonts they distribute.
The author of Crimson Text, a very popular free web font, complains about it on his Github readme [1]:
"While you are looking at the new, improved version, Google Fonts continues to offer the clumsy-looking original and has not heeded the repeated pleas for an upgrade."
Re: How Google obliterated my 4 year old Chrome extension featuring 24k+ users
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
anecdotally, you can get good support if you're a customer, but there's a big difference between a customer and a user. I've heard (not confirmed personally, just overheard at conferences), that if you spend enough on adwords to register on their radar as a customer, things are easy to get sorted even if they're nowhere adwords related. the big difference is that for the most part, google users/developers/... are not…
I can reassure you, as a Google Apps for Business customer, that they treat their paying customers with every bit the same contempt as they treat their free end users.
I have had to call a couple times on different email related issues with Google Apps and have to say my experience has been nothing less than impressed. They were responsive, extremely helpful, and continued to follow-up to make sure the issue was resolved and we were not experiencing any more problems.
I've also had issues with Adsense and have access to their support, and have had the same experience there. Helpful, responsive, and followed up long after the problem was resolved to make sure we didn't have any more problems.
Overall, I went in thinking their support would suck and ended up impressed.