How Google obliterated my 4 year old Chrome extension featuring 24k+ users • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by newscracker » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 2:25 PM UTC

baldfat wrote: post #128

majewsky wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great. Now they should offer the same for the search engine.

They have adds on Google Search? I swear my mind automatically just remove them subconsciously. Also you could just use an add block

> I swear my mind automatically just remove them subconsciously.

That's a (rather quickly) learned behavior called banner blindness. :) [1] People get used to the locations where ads are placed on web pages and also the kind of look that ads have (flashy, colorful, animation, tiny picture with some text, etc., as some examples) and don't even look at them (these have been confirmed by eye tracking studies a long time ago).

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banner_blindness

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

#152

Post by exelius » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 2:26 PM UTC

The "why" is quite simple: Google is an ad company, and the entire reason they developed Chrome was to ensure they had control over the plugin ecosystem to ensure Google-provided ads could never be blocked. But ad blockers are becoming an existential threat to online advertising in general, so Google is likely trying to prevent them from existing.

It's a terrible idea because advertisers don't give a fuck about performance. I've ditched Chrome because it's just too slow with all the ads -- at least with Safari and Firefox I can run an ad blocker to cut down on some of the mountains of JavaScript trackers, overlays and animated banner ads that make the browser so effing slow. I know I'm not the only one in this boat.

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

#153

Post by barkbro » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 2:27 PM UTC

tobltobs wrote: post #80

piyush_soni wrote: post #35

The exact same thing happened to me. I have a fairly successful Firefox add-on named 'Yahoo Mail Hide Ad Panel'[0], and it is one of the top-rated extensions on Mozilla's Add-on store. When I wrote it for Chrome, they removed it apparently after a complaint from Yahoo. Understandable, but I asked them how are the other extensions containing the same name not removed? No answer. I asked if "Hide Ad Panel for Yahoo Mai…

I guess it is not using "Facebook" or in your case "Yahoo" in your extension name, but changing the content for a user of a Facebook or Yahoo page is what is triggering the remove of the extension. If it is against the TOS (or Platform Policy) I don't see how else they are supposed to react if the get a complain.

I don't see how an add-on posted on the Chrome store is subject to Facebook's ToS. It might be aiding people in breaking the ToS, but is there really a law against that?

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

#154

Post by syshum » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 2:27 PM UTC

tobltobs wrote: post #80

piyush_soni wrote: post #35

The exact same thing happened to me. I have a fairly successful Firefox add-on named 'Yahoo Mail Hide Ad Panel'[0], and it is one of the top-rated extensions on Mozilla's Add-on store. When I wrote it for Chrome, they removed it apparently after a complaint from Yahoo. Understandable, but I asked them how are the other extensions containing the same name not removed? No answer. I asked if "Hide Ad Panel for Yahoo Mai…

I guess it is not using "Facebook" or in your case "Yahoo" in your extension name, but changing the content for a user of a Facebook or Yahoo page is what is triggering the remove of the extension. If it is against the TOS (or Platform Policy) I don't see how else they are supposed to react if the get a complain.

1. The Developer of such an addon may not have ever agreed to the TOS

2. Google is under no legal obligations to enforce a contract between Facebook and the Facebook user

3. The TOS applies to the user of facebook, not the developer of DOM manipulation Plugin

4. To the extent the developer agree to said TOS, it is largely open to interpretation if TOS have any legal authority at all beyond giving the ablity of platform operators to ban users for violating them. I.e Facebook's recourse would be to identify people using the plugin and then ban them from the site. of-course Facebook has no desire to actually ban anyone for using a public so they use legally dubious trademark claims.

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

#155

Post by newscracker » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 2:31 PM UTC

exelius wrote: post #152

The "why" is quite simple: Google is an ad company, and the entire reason they developed Chrome was to ensure they had control over the plugin ecosystem to ensure Google-provided ads could never be blocked. But ad blockers are becoming an existential threat to online advertising in general, so Google is likely trying to prevent them from existing. It's a terrible idea because advertisers don't give a fuck about perfo…

It's not true that you cannot run an adblocker on Chrome. You can easily install uBlock Origin, uBlock, Adblock Plus, etc., from the extension store. You can also run EFF's Privacy Badger extension to block trackers as an additional measure.

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

#156

Post by chris_wot » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 2:35 PM UTC

davidgerard wrote: post #112

jeffmould wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

When was that? If they've improved I would be delighted .

Don't try to use groups in any advanced way.

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

#157

Post by spot » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 2:36 PM UTC

mhurron wrote: post #142

spot wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not it isn't. if you sell the data then it goes into 3rd party hands and out of google's control and they can do all kinds of bad things with it.

'Bad things' are tracking (Google does this), targeted ads (Google does this), selling access to information so others can target ads and drop tracking (Google does this), allowing Governments access to your activities (Google does this) Exactly what 'bad things' are being prevented here? The end result is exactly the same for the end user, its simply a question of who is getting paid how much and how often for that…

there are much worse things, like spamming.

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

#158

Post by spot » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 2:38 PM UTC

majewsky wrote: post #46

spot wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not it isn't. if you sell the data then it goes into 3rd party hands and out of google's control and they can do all kinds of bad things with it.

And what exactly prevents them from doing the bad things themselves? What is the inherent reason that I should trust Google more than any other business?

they have a track record.

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

#159

Post by PeterisP » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 2:39 PM UTC

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…

You don't need consent for nominal uses of a trademark. If I say that my service does X for Facebook, then I'm allowed to say that even if Facebook objects.

I may need to explicitly prevent the impression that my service is Facebook or part of it, and add a footnote about who is the owner of the Facebook trademark, but saying that an extension is "a cleaner for Facebook™" is explicitly allowed under trademark laws. Even without consent from Facebook, and even if Facebook explicitly forbids it.

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

#160

Post by deanclatworthy » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 2:42 PM UTC

x1798DE wrote: post #123

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…

> (good luck calling it fair use) Fair use is a defense against copyright infringement, it has nothing to do with trademark infringement. The relevant test here would probably be substantial likelihood of confusion. I don't personally find it confusing, but I'm probably not an average person. I think "Facebook('s) X" is the much more common formulation for branded apps, and it's very common to call something "Cleaner…

IANAL but..

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use_(U.S._trademark_law...

I have personally been working at a company where we had a problem with this. We were providing reviews of companies' websites, and therefore had to use their name and trademark. It was tricky legal ground for us to do this and we were challenged a few times.