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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

#221

Post by [deleted] »

majewsky wrote: post #3
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 ;-)

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…

[deleted]

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

#222

Post by bduerst »

Veen wrote: post #103
robin_reala wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you can? https://contributor.google.com . Not that I’ve tried it - I’m not allowed to in the UK.

Contributor is only for sites that use Google's ad products. I don't think it works in Search. Essentially, it's a way for a site's users to bid for its ad spots. If you bid more than the advertisers, you don't have to see the ads. It's quite a clever idea really, but I don't think it has much uptake from publishers.

I use it and it probably covers about 65-75% of ads I see, and almost 100% on news websites. I've also seen it work in apps.

It's too bad there wasn't some way to have it cross over networks too.

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

#223

Post by bduerst »

kuschku wrote: post #173
spot wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They're not selling your personal information to anyone.

You can read more about how online ads work here: https://privacy.google.com/how-ads-work.html

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

#224

Post by lobster_johnson »

Betabot101 wrote: post #61
Jerry2 wrote: post #55

> My requests got closed with a “Thanks for your feedback.” canned response. This is a prime example of why I don't use my Gmail anymore and why I pay for email. I've read plenty of horror stories of how people lost their Gmail accounts for all kinds of reasons. Most of the losses were completely unrelated to Gmail but related to perceived 'abuse' of Google's other services like Youtube (if your YT account gets shut…

I've recently started to move a lot of the services I use away from Google provided services. Who'd you go with instead of Gmail for email?

Fastmail here. Migrated a couple of years ago, never looked back.

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

#226

Post by kyrra »

joesmo wrote: post #216
kyrra wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It doesn't matter what kind of support you have for Cloud if Google's first reaction is to turn off all services and there isn't a way to get in touch with support outside of social media. Adwords may have some support, but as we've clearly seen here on HN, Cloud does not and out of all the offerings Google has, that one should have the most support. The only people I can see using Cloud at this point are people who…

I'm sorry you have that impression of Google Cloud. I'm wondering if you are referring to the recent story where the guy had his account deactivated? There was a follow-up to that story where the guy involved was actually extremely happy with the response and spoke about it publicly[0] (if you don't read it, note that their service was turned off because they were DOSing others). I'd at least recommend noticing that there are a number of high profile companies that host in Google Cloud and are happy with the service.

http://www.businessinsider.com/google-cloud-won-skeptic-afte...

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

#227

Post by Sylos »

brisraj wrote: post #225

Google listened to somebody's complaint and then decided to take down this extension. When they have somebody or some mechanism to listen to such complaints, why they don't have anybody to listen to this developer.

I'm not sure that they do actually have someone handling trademark complaints. At least on YouTube, they handle copyright claims by simply taking the video down as soon as a copyright claim comes in and then you can try to appeal afterwards as a YouTuber.

But even if they do have a person handling incoming trademark complaints, that doesn't mean that they have someone handling appeals. They can face legal damages, if they don't handle trademark complaints. They can't face legal damages, if they pull through on one too many trademark complaint.

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

#228

Post by paulddraper »

3pt14159 wrote: post #116
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…

There is a difference between supporting every customer (aka, the mass of people behind your average YouTube comment) and supporting developers that promote your ecosystem. By failing to support this one person this one time, they've damaged a lot more people's experience, and the average developer is much more likely to be an influencer. This guy is influencing influencers because he couldn't get a 2 minute support…

It's true. They didn't help 1 person. They didn't help 24k people.

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

#229

Post by tobltobs »

syshum wrote: post #154
tobltobs wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 platfo…

IANAL, but this part from chrome webstore TOS

> You agree that you will not engage in any activity with the Web Store, including the development or publication of Products ... that knowingly violates a third party’s terms of service,

sounds like publishing extensions which enable users to violate the Facebook TOS are not ok.

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

#230

Post by tobltobs »

barkbro wrote: post #153
tobltobs wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

There is no law necessary, Google explicitly forbids publishing extensions that aide people in violating the TOS of third party services.
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