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

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

#241

Post by joesmo »

kyrra wrote: post #226
joesmo wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sure. Read that. But the ends don't justify the means. Doesn't matter how happy he was, shutting down a whole account because one server was hacked is preposterous. The same situation happened to me on AWS, and if AWS had done the same, you can be sure I'd write the same thing about them. In fact, this is the only decent thing about AWS considering how shitty the various services are and what torture it is to use them. But at least AWS had the sense to shut down networking to the instance and leave the rest of the infrastructure alone.

Common sense, apparently, can't even be bought with Google/Alphabet money.

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

#242

Post by SZJX »

aminorex wrote: post #184
barkbro wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Google makes the laws now. Governments are mostly irrelevant.

Well you've been quite extreme in this thread. I get your concerns, but I'd say that day is still very much far away. Libertarian lunatics like Peter Thiel certainly dream of it, but I really doubt it will become the reality, at least not over the whole world if indeed so in the already very corporate America.

Anyways, if the vision aspired by Thiel happens, those "libertarian" capitalists will be killed by revolts/uprisings in an instant. A world without tax nor regulation nor basic support for social equality never works. Just as explained in Capitalism in the 21st Century, if inequality is not addressed, there will be revolts and chaos. Extreme injustice can't dominate forever.

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

#243

Post by SZJX »

davidgerard wrote: post #62
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…

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.

Well I'd say for their core products such as AdWords Google are treating their customers with care. It's just that they simply don't give a shit to the majority of their other products. Why would they anyways? They're an ad company and really just as the founders said themselves, the other projects are much experimental in nature after all. That's just the reality in a business sense.

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

#244

Post by SZJX »

Sure the point of this article is about customer support offered by Google. I'd say for their core products such as AdWords, Google are treating their customers with care. It's just that they simply don't give a shit to the majority of their other products. Why would they anyways? They're an ad company, earn their profits through ads almost exclusively, and really just as the founders said themselves, the other projects are much experimental in nature after all. That's just the reality in a business sense.

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

#245

Post by SZJX »

imron wrote: post #139
al_chemist wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently app / extension developer is not a customer.

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

You pay a few dollars to get your extension listed in the Chrome store or your app published in Play Market AFAIK. So by definition you are. Hell, even the customers who bought some apps in the store have a share of their money going to Google, so they are also Google's customers as well. It's just that they contribute way too little financially and are so many in number that Google choose to not give a damn. Ads has always been their only core, true business anyways.

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

#246

Post by nkozyra »

zenopopovici wrote: post #212
nkozyra wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 i…

It doesn't really matter if you agree with me or not. To say that Google inaction or non-communication is fair or good or OK is simply out of this world. I specifically said in the article that it's not the takedown I had a problem with. But the total lack of support in solving the issues. If I'm not made aware of the rules, I can't fix anything. They specifically said I had to get back to the original complainant to…

> To say that Google inaction or non-communication is fair or good or OK is simply out of this world.

I didn't say any of that.

> If I'm not made aware of the rules, I can't fix anything.

I don't think Google or Apple could ever (or should ever) - in any meaningful way - advise you on copyright law. That would ultimately boil down to a civil issue between you and Facebook. Facebook, however, made it quite explicit what their issue was. By your article it seems you did not try to rectify the issues that Facebook brought. The notion that you exhausted all avenues to getting your extension re-activated is simply not true.

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

#247

Post by kuschku »

bduerst wrote: post #235
kuschku wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except to a foreign government that is actively hostile towards my rights. That’s more than enough.

Because this foreign government is booking ads? I don't follow your line of reasoning here.

No, they do that in addition to giving information to advertisers.

If any company gives any information about me to a third party, that's already wrong.

And while advertisers don't get the data directly, they get it indirectly. They get the user specification (age, gender, rough location) they bid on, and the IP, and several advertisers even used that to track you between different websites their AdWords ads were shown on.

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

#248

Post by bduerst »

kuschku wrote: post #247
bduerst wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because this foreign government is booking ads? I don't follow your line of reasoning here.

No, they do that in addition to giving information to advertisers. If any company gives any information about me to a third party, that's already wrong. And while advertisers don't get the data directly, they get it indirectly. They get the user specification (age, gender, rough location) they bid on, and the IP, and several advertisers even used that to track you between different websites their AdWords ads were sho…

They don't give your information, directly or indirectly, to advertisers. Using aggregated information for ad targeting isn't "selling" information to third parties, no matter how hard you try to loosely redefine the semantics of the word.

I'd ask how you think they are giving data to foreign governments, but I have a feeling you'll try to redefine "mandatory court subpoenas for individuals" as the same.

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

#249

Post by pitay »

nkozyra wrote: post #215
zenopopovici wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually no. The same extension is OK in the Safari store by using "Cleaner - For Facebook". This is OK according to the law. I didn't get the clear reasons my extension was taken down. It is a grand leap to what needs to be changed in order for the app to be compliant and in the same time not confusing existing users.

> Actually no. The same extension is OK in the Safari store by using "Cleaner - For Facebook". This is OK according to the law. The fact that Safari allows it is not some broad-sweeping legal pronouncement. Nor is it proof that they even truly evaluated it more than superficially. It's not even validation that the extension is compliant via Apple's terms. It just means your extension got back in. Apple could get a ta…

You clearly are ignoring fair use, because you are so invested in supporting incumbents for some reason. Would you like to tell why you think that just because someone makes something that a powerful incumbent doesn't like, that is must be shouted down. It wasn't even violating trademark because of fair use http://www.inta.org/TrademarkBasics/FactSheets/Pages/FairUse... . Why are you on their side, because clearly you are. Why? Is it because you are paid to do this? Something else? What is the position you are in? Because you trying to discredit the author so intently, you must have some interest, and it seems dishonest that you don't reveal it, because it is not a position a rational person observing would come up with, not in any way that I can think of anyway.

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

#250

Post by KiwiCoder »

Sylos wrote: post #200
KiwiCoder wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP, but I moved all of my email from free Gmail to paid Fastmail about 2 years ago, and I've not had a moment of regret. I send quite a lot of email for work and other things and I have what I think is a higher-than-average number of email addresses to manage. One adjustment I made - I now archive older emails to avoid extra storage costs, which in turn means that searching for older emails is slightly more hassl…

Can't you just use another e-mail app, like for example K-9 Mail, with it?

I used K-9 for many months and it was just OK. The FastMail app was not a huge improvement (over K-9) but it was still an improvement, at least in my experience. From memory K-9 didn't handle multiple "send-from" accounts as competently as the FastMail app, and there were other quirks that became more irritating over time.
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