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How Google obliterated my 4 year old Chrome extension featuring 24k+ users

by.graffino.com

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Re: How Google obliterated my 4 year old Chrome extension featuring 24k+ users

#131

Post by zenopopovici »

deanclatworthy wrote: post #23

What 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…

They told me I was infringing 4 years later... when there are numerous apps in the store doing the same. It's also a cleaner that works only of Facebook. Google reviewed it and approved it 4 years ago. The extension is free. There is no advertising. I don't make any profit.

I was never told what to do or how to change it so that my users would still recognize it. Also changing its name in "Cleaner - For Facebook" was suggested (and accepted) for the Safari extension by the Safari Gallery Team.

If I don't know what I'm doing wrong, I can't fix it. This is not about TM infringement, but the total lack of communication by Google.

Thing is that they basically told me I can't do anything if the original complainant gives his go-ahead ... after 3 months of canned responses.

(I'm the author of the post).

Re: How Google obliterated my 4 year old Chrome extension featuring 24k+ users

#132

Post by zenopopovici »

petercooper wrote: post #2

I'm starting to think that if Google had a service where you could pay $10/$20/whatever, and actually get someone reasonably well informed to read what you're saying and direct your issue to the right person, they'd have another significant revenue stream on their hands ;-)

I would gladly pay for developer support. I do it for Apple. (I'm the original author).

Re: How Google obliterated my 4 year old Chrome extension featuring 24k+ users

#133

Post by misingnoglic »

pyvpx wrote: post #71
edent wrote: post #22

Not 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…

so then hire 200 customer service people to handle the queries when the algorithms go awry? surely there is an algorithm they can devise that will identify when the other algorithms have made mistakes. right? :-)

The problem is that if a human is available to talk to, people will normally tend to that option even if their answer is on the help page.

Re: How Google obliterated my 4 year old Chrome extension featuring 24k+ users

#134

Post by user8341116 »

zenopopovici wrote: post #131
deanclatworthy wrote: post #23

What 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…

They told me I was infringing 4 years later... when there are numerous apps in the store doing the same. It's also a cleaner that works only of Facebook. Google reviewed it and approved it 4 years ago. The extension is free. There is no advertising. I don't make any profit. I was never told what to do or how to change it so that my users would still recognize it. Also changing its name in "Cleaner - For Facebook" was…

I got pulled over for speeding once, all I did was lean out the window and say, hey officer, what gives? Everyone else was going the same speed as me? He said yeah you're right, have a good one!

Actually that didn't happen because that's not the way the world works.

Re: How Google obliterated my 4 year old Chrome extension featuring 24k+ users

#135

Post by zenopopovici »

ythl wrote: post #130

Before I even read the article I knew the extension was an ad-blocker. All these people make ad-destroying apps and extensions and then act flabbergasted when big companies relying on ad-revenue don't like that and file complaints to get them taken down.

But it's not why it was taken down ... :)

Re: How Google obliterated my 4 year old Chrome extension featuring 24k+ users

#136

Post by ptero »

deanclatworthy wrote: post #118
ptero wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

They don't need to get legality involved. Their terms of service also give them the right to kick you off the service - as they please. If you don't follow them - you don't get to use the nice things. It's pretty simple - whether we agree or not :)

As a private company they can kick one off the service anyway, ToS (which they can easily modify on the fly) or not. I (probably mis-)read your post to mean there was a clear legal problem with trying to modify the view to suit user tastes ("user content stays, ads go").

Folks doing this are fighting an uphill battle against stronger opponents who have powerful weapons (e.g., disable access), but it is not a hopeless battle -- there are examples of successful and profitable products built for filtering out force-fed content.

Re: How Google obliterated my 4 year old Chrome extension featuring 24k+ users

#137

Post by nkozyra »

zenopopovici wrote: post #129
nkozyra wrote: post #85

> After 3 months of trying everything I could think of, I give up. Frankly, it would have taken just one thing - remove references to Facebook. I know that's basically amounting to doing some linguistic gymnastics in order to express what your extension does, but you _did_ in fact use a trademark without their consent, and ostensibly in a way that reduces their revenue stream. This really isn't a Graffino v Google is…

So they told me I was infringing 4 years later... when there are numerous apps in the store doing the same. It's also a cleaner that works only of Facebook. Google reviewed it and approved it 4 years ago. The extension is free. There is no advertising. I don't make any profit. I was never told what to do or how to change it so that my users would still recognize it. Also changing its name in "Cleaner - For Facebook"…

> So they told me I was infringing 4 years later... when there are numerous apps in the store doing the same.

This is not a great defense. We know from the trail you presented that someone from FB's legal/compliance team found your extension, not the others, likely due to its visibility and popularity. That doesn't mean the other extensions are in the clear. It just means they weren't on FB's radar.

> The extension is free. There is no advertising. I don't make any profit.

I'm sorry, but that's irrelevant. The complaint wasn't that you were profiting from the ™, just that you were using it.

> If I don't know what I'm doing wrong, I can't fix it. This is not about TM infringement, but the total lack of communication by Google

I cannot disagree more. They told you what the problem was and the originating email explained that quite explicitly. You did not have permission to use the trademark Facebook (or FB). That's it. If you removed those protected trademarks, it would have been a different story.

Re: How Google obliterated my 4 year old Chrome extension featuring 24k+ users

#138

Post by ythl »

zenopopovici wrote: post #135
ythl wrote: post #130

Before I even read the article I knew the extension was an ad-blocker. All these people make ad-destroying apps and extensions and then act flabbergasted when big companies relying on ad-revenue don't like that and file complaints to get them taken down.

But it's not why it was taken down ... :)

Try an experiment, then. Create a new account and submit the extension under a new name unrelated to facebook. Grow your userbase to a size significant enough that FB notices.

I am betting that FB will get it taken down again. Trademark Infringement was just the scapegoat for your original extension. The real reason it was taken down was because it was harming FB's business model for a growing portion of its userbase.

Re: How Google obliterated my 4 year old Chrome extension featuring 24k+ users

#139

Post by imron »

al_chemist wrote: post #115
adzicg wrote: post #42

Earlier 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…

Apparently app / extension developer is not a customer.

If you're not paying them money, you're not a customer.

Re: How Google obliterated my 4 year old Chrome extension featuring 24k+ users

#140

Post by jondubois »

Silicon Valley companies are an oligopoly - They behave more like collaborators than competitors. This type of behaviour just confirms it.

Why does Google care if someone wrote software to block Facebook ads? Maybe they have a secret deal with Facebook to help cleanse the world from ad blockers?

Obviously Apple has no skin in the game (they don't rely on ad money) - Maybe that's why they allowed the ad blocker to remain on their store.

This is a case of competing companies collaborating with each other at the expense of the consumer because the outcome is mutually-beneficial for the companies. This is anti-capitalist behaviour.

If Facebook has a problem with ad blockers, they should take it up with the government instead of collaborating with competitors.

That brings back memories of the Google/Apple employee anti-poaching agreement http://www.cnet.com/news/apple-google-others-settle-anti-poa...

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