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Let's guess what Google requires in 14 days or they kill our extension

blog.pushbullet.com

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Re: Let's guess what Google requires in 14 days or they kill our extension

#631

Post by cosmicexplorer »

bigfoot675 wrote: post #603
arcticbull wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... all of this is consistent with an extension that should be kicked off the app store within 14 days. No, it absolutely isn't. You can't take someone's livelihood off the app store within 14 days when they have every interest in complying with your policy but you just don't feel the need to even tell them what all the policy is. The fact it was approved in the first place is Google's fault, not the app developer,…

I mean they can. It's their store. I don't think they should, but still

I'm pretty sure the parent comment understands that they can, and also agrees that they shouldn't.

Re: Let's guess what Google requires in 14 days or they kill our extension

#632

Post by behnamoh »

umvi wrote: post #596
kelnos wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can only assume that this isn't the result of a human flagging Pushbullet like this; I expect it's an automated system. And if that automated system can make a decision to flag the extension, it could also include in the email specifically what caused that flagging to happen. At this point I'm really starting to become unsympathetic to the idea that they can't tell you what you're doing wrong because it'll enable p…

> And if that automated system can make a decision to flag the extension, it could also include in the email specifically what caused that flagging to happen Unless it's a black box machine learning model that just says yes/no but can't tell you why

> Unless it's a black box machine learning model that just says yes/no but can't tell you why

Recently there's been some interest in Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) which addresses the problem of "black box" machines. There are techniques such as SHAP and LIME that can help the ML designers provide explanations for why any specific observation has been "rejected". That said, I'm not sure if that's what Google uses here.

Re: Let's guess what Google requires in 14 days or they kill our extension

#633

Post by cosmicexplorer »

highlysyntropic wrote: post #617
geofft wrote: post #403

Uh, yikes: > As I looked at the permissions and what our extension actually needs to operate, I noticed a great opportunity to reduce our permissions requests. We do not need to request access to data on https://*/* and http://*/* . Instead, we can simply request data access for https://*.pushbullet.com/* , http://*.pushbullet.com/* , and http://localhost/* . This is a huge reduction in the private data our extension…

paid Google shill.

I agree with this comment and I think it improves the conversation to have around, even if many people disagree with it.

Re: Let's guess what Google requires in 14 days or they kill our extension

#634

Post by tornato7 »

core-questions wrote: post #455
dilandau wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We hear you and are eagerly looking to improve things. Joking aside, isn't this just what people should come to expect from the company that has always tried to normalize the "no support and no service" model? If these antics start causing GOOG to lose share in the browser market then they may review these policies, but I highly doubt it. At the end of the day GOOG is an ad company and publicly-traded at that. They…

> Stop using their browser, stop using their search. The more people that do this in general, the better. We've given Google entirely too much power to control what people see and read (and it follows, control over what they say and think). They don't have our best interests at heart, they have financial interests at heart, and everything else flows from there. I'm not saying this is evil, but it's certainly not _goo…

What should I use for search? I tried switching to DDG for a month but I kept finding myself manually typing in Google.com to make the more obscure searches.

Re: Let's guess what Google requires in 14 days or they kill our extension

#635

Post by tornato7 »

dilandau wrote: post #530
znpy wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "no support and no service" model? this is one of the reasons why Google cloud will lose to AWS in the long run. AWS is customer obsessed, Google is not.

It's so difficult to imagine a) getting ahold of someone at Google who can actually help you, and b) having some sense of assurance that they will actually help you. "Google deleted my X" posts always rise to the top on HN because they elicit a strong emotional response from developers. I think it's worthwhile to reflect on why that happens. For me, it's because I absolutely despise seeing an algorithm have control o…

YouTube content creators can relate too. Lots of videos about YouTubers getting randomly demonetized or removed from search results for no reason.

Re: Let's guess what Google requires in 14 days or they kill our extension

#637

Post by noahtallen »

arcticbull wrote: post #537
geofft wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the thing I'm sympathetic to - having fixed the bug , it's frustrating that it's not clear what the next steps are. But given that they had the bug, Chrome was absolutely in the right to deny them the first time. And while I don't like Chrome's position that they're too busy to explain to everyone what they're doing wrong, if extensions that go "oh hey, we don't actually need access to literally every website,…

> That's the thing I'm sympathetic to - having fixed the bug, it's frustrating that it's not clear what the next steps are. That may not have been the bug, your guess is as good as literally anyone's right now. That's the issue at hand.

Yes. So more importantly, these may or may not even be the kinds of things that the system flags. So we can’t even say that Google’s system is working correctly and is flagging things correctly. I’m happy to concede that the plugin needs to fix vulnerabilities, but it seems like it’s distracting from the main argument, which is how the hell do devs know what to fix in these review processes. I’ve had similar experiences with Apple, Google, and especially Facebook in the past.

Re: Let's guess what Google requires in 14 days or they kill our extension

#638

Post by fauigerzigerk »

adrianN wrote: post #602
umvi wrote: post #596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And if that automated system can make a decision to flag the extension, it could also include in the email specifically what caused that flagging to happen Unless it's a black box machine learning model that just says yes/no but can't tell you why

I think it's more likely that their flagging is heuristic based and could easily defeated by a malicious extension author and giving detailed feedback makes reverse engineering the rules trivial.

Law enforcement has a solution for that: Do tell people what the rules are and what they are doing wrong. Don‘t tell them how they got caught and what methods were used to catch them.

Telling people that they are going to be severely punished within days by a very powerful global entity, without telling them which specific rules they are in breach of or what they have to change is a dystopian nightmare.

Re: Let's guess what Google requires in 14 days or they kill our extension

#639

Post by tornato7 »

iagovar wrote: post #178
t0mas88 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chrome on Android already doesn't have extensions. That made me switch to Firefox on Android and within a week my laptop was also on Firefox because it's nice to have tab syncing etc between devices. If enough users do this I think Google will review their policy on extensions and specifically adblockers. Can't browse without one anymore after having used it for a while.

Brave is also nice in Android, although I miss the FF extensions.

Ad blockers are almost necessary for the mobile web now unless you want to spend half your time dodging ads

Re: Let's guess what Google requires in 14 days or they kill our extension

#640

Post by rckoepke »

gmueckl wrote: post #601
chc wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't very actionable advice, though, since there is basically no such thing as a software product that isn't built on somebody else's property. You might think, "Ah-ha, web apps!" But no, Google can still casually destroy you there. Or you might think, "Ah-ha, desktop apps!" But the OS vendor can casually destroy you there.

This is actionable advice. The action is to create an offer that is not entirely depeneent on a single platform provider. Don't build browser extensions for just a single browser. Don't build an app based business solely around an iOS or Android app - support both platforms. And so on.

This implies that a company could generally survive 50% of their revenue disappearing overnight. This may be true for 1-3 employee companies but past that I doubt it. Also generally the large majority of your revenue still comes from one of your platforms, making that one still likely an existential risk.
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