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Google to developers: We take down your extension because we can

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Re: Google to developers: We take down your extension because we can

#71

Post by euske »

gnicholas wrote: post #23

Same thing happened to me [1], with a slightly different rationale for pulling the extension. This happened despite tens of thousands of users, years of good reviews, and an extension so useful that Google's own accessibility team demos it at conferences. I was only able to get the situation sorted because I know people who work at Google on the Chrome team. Even with all this, it took weeks to get the previous versi…

Hey, it's off topic, but I just learned about your product and sent a link of the product page (beelinereader.com/individual) to my colleagues - only to find out that my email was filtered as a spam by FortiMail! Apparently, the offending text was that URL. Maybe it's somehow related? Was this product site previously infested by malware or something?

Re: Google to developers: We take down your extension because we can

#72

Post by adiusmus »

foobarbazetc wrote: post #47

Meanwhile there’s an extension on there with our company name and logo (both trademarked) that might be stealing peoples data and Google have done nothing about it after many submissions of their trademark infringement form.

Create an extension with similar name then cite the other for something. When they challenge you reference your trademark etc... or take them to court in front of a judge.

Re: Google to developers: We take down your extension because we can

#73

Post by [deleted] »

frandroid wrote: post #39
MattBearman wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17448254 I can already see the followup HN news: "Google attacking developers on Chrome Web Store and breaking free web!" That's uncanny!

It's almost as if the poster of this item had also noticed this page from yesterday around the same time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17449927

[deleted]

Re: Google to developers: We take down your extension because we can

#74

Post by vageli »

foobarbazetc wrote: post #47

Meanwhile there’s an extension on there with our company name and logo (both trademarked) that might be stealing peoples data and Google have done nothing about it after many submissions of their trademark infringement form.

Thank goodness that Google is not a court of law and you can engage the legal system for restitution. I mean, wouldn't you want to go that route anyway given the potential damage to your brand by a third-party abusing your trademark? Would pulling the extension undo all the harm the infringement caused you?

Re: Google to developers: We take down your extension because we can

#75

Post by userbinator »

I've never really been a fan of the whole "browser extensions" thing, with perhaps the exception of UI mods, and things like this only serve to reinforce that notion. I prefer to use a MITM filtering proxy, which works in all browsers and is independent of, so isn't beholden to, the authoritarian institutions which control them. Incidentally I also have a filter which does the same thing as his extension, and I probably added it the same day Google decided to mess with those links.

Re: Google to developers: We take down your extension because we can

#76

Post by markdown »

nixpulvis wrote: post #66
tomatotomato37 wrote: post #20

In another thread[1] on HN today there was discussion over developers selling out their web extensions to marketing corporations which end up filling them with tracking scripts and malware. Someone suggested that google should be much more aggressive at filtering out said extensions, and one of the responses was a sarcastic comment over a future article about Google attacking extension developers and the free web. An…

The problem isn't that an extension was removed. There will always be erroneous attempts at making things safer for users when playing the game of content moderator. The problem is that Google is impossible to talk to, and makes no effort to help when things go wrong. As a current user of gmail this worries me.

> As a current user of gmail this worries me.

Anyone using a free service anywhere provided by anyone should be worried.

I pay to use gmail and their service is incredible. Whether it's been support chat, phone calls, etc... I've always received very prompt support from Google.

Re: Google to developers: We take down your extension because we can

#77

Post by Waterluvian »

nixpulvis wrote: post #66
tomatotomato37 wrote: post #20

In another thread[1] on HN today there was discussion over developers selling out their web extensions to marketing corporations which end up filling them with tracking scripts and malware. Someone suggested that google should be much more aggressive at filtering out said extensions, and one of the responses was a sarcastic comment over a future article about Google attacking extension developers and the free web. An…

The problem isn't that an extension was removed. There will always be erroneous attempts at making things safer for users when playing the game of content moderator. The problem is that Google is impossible to talk to, and makes no effort to help when things go wrong. As a current user of gmail this worries me.

This petrifies me. Google provides an incredibly easy way for me to capture all data that I care about. Getting photos and videos of my kids growing up and keeping them for years is trivial with Google.

And in one little error it can all disappear with no recourse.

I continue to struggle today to find a silver bullet solution for someone like me who just wants to hurl money somewhere and say, "use this money to guarantee that my cherished photos and videos will be here in 30 years"

Second to that is getting locked out of my Gmail. I'd consider that more irritating than losing my wallet.

Re: Google to developers: We take down your extension because we can

#78

Post by benatkin »

markdown wrote: post #76
nixpulvis wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't that an extension was removed. There will always be erroneous attempts at making things safer for users when playing the game of content moderator. The problem is that Google is impossible to talk to, and makes no effort to help when things go wrong. As a current user of gmail this worries me.

> As a current user of gmail this worries me. Anyone using a free service anywhere provided by anyone should be worried. I pay to use gmail and their service is incredible. Whether it's been support chat, phone calls, etc... I've always received very prompt support from Google.

It isn't free if you have your own domain. In fact they prorate it when you cancel.

Re: Google to developers: We take down your extension because we can

#79

Post by Bahamut »

markdown wrote: post #76
nixpulvis wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't that an extension was removed. There will always be erroneous attempts at making things safer for users when playing the game of content moderator. The problem is that Google is impossible to talk to, and makes no effort to help when things go wrong. As a current user of gmail this worries me.

> As a current user of gmail this worries me. Anyone using a free service anywhere provided by anyone should be worried. I pay to use gmail and their service is incredible. Whether it's been support chat, phone calls, etc... I've always received very prompt support from Google.

I’ve paid to use Google services before, and had the most miserable customer service experience with a company ever. Contact information difficult to find, and walled behind accounts you have no knowledge of potentially, and policies designed to be explicitly hostile (I had them admit that outright to me) - I ended up out of $500+ as a result, for which they only were willing to refund $20.

Google seems to just be an exceptionally bad actor - I’ve been starting to move away from dependence on them as a result, as they’ve proven to me that I cannot rely on them to be honest/transparent in the most important ways.

Re: Google to developers: We take down your extension because we can

#80

Post by Zyst »

Waterluvian wrote: post #77
nixpulvis wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't that an extension was removed. There will always be erroneous attempts at making things safer for users when playing the game of content moderator. The problem is that Google is impossible to talk to, and makes no effort to help when things go wrong. As a current user of gmail this worries me.

This petrifies me. Google provides an incredibly easy way for me to capture all data that I care about. Getting photos and videos of my kids growing up and keeping them for years is trivial with Google. And in one little error it can all disappear with no recourse. I continue to struggle today to find a silver bullet solution for someone like me who just wants to hurl money somewhere and say, "use this money to guara…

That's what I do with Google Drive?

If I were to get banned from Google, I'd still have my folder as a backup which I can then upload to Dropbox or whatever alternative.

If I were to lose my folder (My hard drive went bust!) my folder is one resync away.

What is the problem you have with photos, and videos in that sense?

Or are you talking about the Free "Google Photo" thing for lower resolution images?

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