Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

by.graffino.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 252 posts

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

#171

Post by nkozyra »

PeterisP wrote: post #159
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. E…

I'm not saying the complaint was legally valid, obviously Google can't return the necessary due diligence on every DMCA takedown request. But the reasoning was explicitly stated in that request.

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

#172

Post by nkozyra »

fenomas wrote: post #166
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…

> Frankly, it would have taken just one thing - remove references to Facebook. Unless you're part of the team at google with the power to reinstate extensions, I don't know how you can possibly claim to know that.

This strikes me as pedantic - we can probably safely assume that not doing the thing that caused the extension to be removed might in fact not cause the extension to be removed.

Can I say that with authority? Of course not. I can't say the window wouldn't be broken had you not thrown a baseball at it, either. But I can tell you the window is broken because you threw a baseball at it.

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

#173

Post by kuschku »

spot wrote: post #157
mhurron wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'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.

Spamming isn’t bad, spamming can be fixed with a spamfilter.

Selling your age, gender, location, preferences, etc to anyone who books an ad? That’s bad.

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

#174

Post by DannyBee »

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…

"They told me I was infringing 4 years later... "

Laches is only a defense if facebook knows and it took 4 years. Even then, caselaw suggests 4 years is the minimum you'd ever get to complain about.

"Google reviewed it and approved it 4 years ago."

Not sure of the relevance to the first sentence. It's not the same folks.

"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. "

I'm honestly not sure what you expect here. Google doesn't know what's going to make the other guy stop complaining, and if the other guys complains, they have liability.

I expect this is why they directed you to contact the complainant. Google really can't say or do anything here without risking legal liability, unless the other guy basically says "yeah, we don't care anymore". So they aren't. You can't expect Google to offer you legal advice on how to fix this, that's just silly.

Note that contrary to whatever you think - you have recourse here, even if facebook ignores you (i assume you called the complaining place on the phone instead of just emailing folks)

You could go get a declaratory judgement that your app is not trademark infringing. If you did this, and google ignored that, i think you'd have a reasonable argument here.

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

#175

Post by exelius »

newscracker wrote: post #155
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.

It's more that if these extensions ever became a real threat to Google, they could easily block them since they control the extension store. That tends to keep them in line over the long run.

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

#176

Post by ejcx »

I ran in to the exact same problem.

I had a chrome extension with >15k users. One day I got an email saying I violated the facebook trademark (my extension blocked the read receipts in facebook messenger and had 'facebook' in the title).

I reached out to google and they said reach out to the person who filed the complaint (which was not facebook, it was some agency they pay). I reached out to them, called their phone number, sent them emails, and they were unreachable. I emailed google to say they are unreachable and they won't respond.

It is kind of annoying...

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

#177

Post by kuschku »

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 :)

> Their terms of service also give them the right to kick you off the service - as they please.

Actually, they don’t, as rulings in Germany have shown, Facebook does NOT have the right to close accounts "at will" or for ToS violations. Especially not if the relevant ToS paragraph does not conform to law.

(Just like you can’t refuse to serve customers for their religion in the US, for example)

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

#178

Post by DannyBee »

chris_wot wrote: post #162
user8341116 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How did the officer have the legal right to pull you over? Why, because you broke the law as it is codified . Google haven't codified anything, and actively allow apps to do what they selectively disallow on only certain apps. I'm surprised you can't see the difference!

I can't see the difference either because it makes no sense.

First, they only need probable cause to pull you over, you don't actually have to have broken the law. So the analogy is pretty broken, because the police already can do the thing you don't want google doing :). It's also civil vs criminal, so ...

Second, the law is codified, why do you think it was taken down?

Google received a trademark complaint. A complaint someone broke the law. This is like going down to the police station and filing a complaint.

As for "actively allow", that's silly. They aren't ignoring trademark complaints about the others, they just didn't get any. I'm sure if someone filed complaints, they'd take those down too.

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

#179

Post by karmachameleon2 »

spot wrote: post #158
majewsky wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A track record of doing bad things behind the scenes, perhaps?

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

#180

Post by diego_moita »

Isn't this a very old story, repeated a thousand times before? How many people made excellent programs for Windows only to see Microsoft stealing or destroying it by changing APIs or exploring undocumented features of Windows? Ask Borland, Computer Associates, Lotus, PKWare and so many others.

How many times has Apple already done the same, both on the Mac and iPhone?

And before them both there was IBM.

When you develop for controlled platforms and walled gardens you're not creating a business for the long run. What you're doing is free market research for the owners of the garden.

Yes, there are exceptions (Intuit, Adobe, Autodesk). But they're exceptions, not the rule.

Post reply on HN