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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

#751

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #426
ashtonkem wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had Apple point out that I hadn’t yet added a TOS for a trivia app I was making; they’re very thorough.

Almost every rejection has been a matter of "process," like ToS, privacy policy, plist entries, etc. In a couple of cases, they actually found crashes that I missed in my testing.

I should also mention another common rejection reason, so it's "out there."

Trademark use.

I have had apps rejected because I used a trademark (usually Apple's) in my app name or description.

For example, I had submitted an app called "Bluetooth 8-Ball for tvOS".

I was told that "tvOS" was not allowable. I had to use "TV".

This kind of thing has happened a few times. I casually use Apple trademarked terminology a lot, but I can't be as sanguine about it when I submit apps.

Full Disclosure: They also had a problem with the app being a "demonstrator" app. They don't want us releasing apps that they don't think we're "serious" about. They had a point, and I ended up withdrawing the app.

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

#752

Post by ricktdotorg »

arseniclifeform wrote: post #280
sudoit wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Had the same problem when I made a fairly successful app in university. Whole account got deleted for a “3rd strike” meaning “3rd resubmission.” I’ve made a new account and their AI black box still doesn’t realize it’s me...

By whole account deleted do you mean your Chrome dev "account" or your Google account including Gmail, Gcal, and YouTube? The latter is my greatest fear.

or pay them 6 bucks a month for a G Suite account instead of free gmail so you actually have the ability to call a 24/7 customer service phone number and yell and scream and get someone to find out why they removed access to your lifeblood account, and have access restored.

it constantly amazes me that so many HN people put their ENTIRE LIVES/BUSINESSES in a free account that [has been proven, countless times] can be taken away from them at any time.

i mean what do folks expect for free?

google is an asshole company, sure. but so many HN'ers expect to be treated like "customers" with associated "customer rights" when in actual fact, they are a free user, a total nobody.

pay a company a small bit of money, and hey, whaddyaknow, you can suddenly call them up and talk to someone, figure out why they removed access to your account, and get it sorted out.

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

#753

Post by bostonpete »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #719
saurik wrote: post #673

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, and will go further in that I believe they actually should have such an obligation: it should be a consumer right to find out why you were denied access to a platform--or a restaurant, or a barber shop, or a wedding cake maker, or whatever else that someone is refusing you service due to, as a business operating in the public--and that whatever reason that is must be something that either 1) has nothing to d…

I was ready to get behind this line of reasoning, but then I thought about e.g. comment sections. Anyone who has moderated a forum will know that trolls find every possible way to walk right up to the line without technically crossing it. If you say "personal attacks aren't allowed", they'll say "I wasn't attacking him personally, I just suggested that anyone who says [the thing he said] should consider getting evalu…

Yeah, this is the issue. They're not going to catch every dirty thing extensions (perhaps unwittingly) do. If they are able to detect one or more problems with an extension, there's a good chance that there are other problems that were undetected. Forcing extension authors to go back and think about what they could be doing better rather than just telling them the minimal set of changes that are needed seems like it can only result in more well-behaved extensions across the board.

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

#754

Post by the_af »

creato wrote: post #363
the_af wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The recent nerfing of ublock origin has already had me feeling iffy on things. What did they do to ublock origin? The single best Chrome extension ever . If it stops working and I must suffer YouTube ads again, it's bye bye Chrome.

If Youtube ads mean that much to you, why not just pay for it? I'm all for ad blocking (I use ublock too) but if I heavily use a site that offers me a way to pay a reasonable price, I think it's the right thing to do. Uploaders with monetized videos still get paid that way (and I don't want to bother with Patreon etc, that doesn't nearly scale to everyone I watch videos from).

Eventually there's a whole deal of stuff you end up paying for, a few bucks at a time. I draw the line somewhere. Ads are one such line. I won't watch them anyway, so their only purpose is to annoy me -- and I tend to swat away annoying things.

Never let anyone make you feel bad for blocking ads. It's the right thing to do.

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

#755

Post by tlogan »

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…

The sad thing is that there are so many bad extensions but they are run by professionals (crime gangs). They can figure out how to game the system (since there is no humans - that is definitely possible). So this "half-ass" approach by Google just helps malicious actors - they just need to be under the "radar" and game the system.

Google is trying to do "half ass" approach. Which does not help users, does not help developers, and it also does not help Google.

The right approach is to do these reviews fully and that human is involved at some point. Of course, these things are are not free. So they can require $1000 or more per year subscription if extension require more than basic permissions. They anyway require at least 60K per year for using an API. Or something like that.

But it could be also that Google does not care about real security: just appearance of security. They need to sell ads and all other things they do (Chrome, Android, G Suite, etc.) is just a smoke screen.

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

#756

Post by sdwedq »

nautilus12 wrote: post #746
im3w1l wrote: post #744

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's some actionable advice. Go to your local president / prime minister. Preferably a populist. Tell them how you see the dominance of a few megacorps as a threat to national security . This argument is especially strong if from your point of view they are foreign megacorps. Throw in something about colonialism if it would help your case. Express your wish that they do something .

What? Are you being sarcastic?

This is seems like a good advice to increase competition by using nationalist sentiments. The problem is that many of these nationalist countries would outright ban competition. So people who demanded local alternative will end up with less competition.

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

#757

Post by wadkar »

mplanchard wrote: post #750
fluffything wrote: post #745

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I installed Firefox and deleted Chrome You know that Firefox is Google right? Like, literally, Google is the main company paying Firefox's developers, and if they don't do what Google says, Google can just cut the funding, and they all end up unemployed, right ? Of course, to avoid a monopoly, Google would need to fund a different browser instead, but still, people have families to feed. If you want to cut dependen…

The money that Mozilla makes from Google comes primarily from setting Google as the default search engine in Firefox. You can see lots more details on this here (2016 numbers): https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2016/ I think stating that Google controls Firefox is vastly overstating the degree of influence.

Is it reasonable to assume that bing will be more than happy to become the default should google leave any space on the table?

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

#758

Post by vpmpaul »

geofft wrote: post #494
JaggedJax wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you're completely ignoring the point that even without the all http(s) permission they will still be kicked off the store, so that has nothing do do with the issue at hand. If localhost is the issue, Google could literally respond exactly the way you did and the problem is gone, "why do you need http://localhost/?" This isn't about permissions at all. This is about communication and whether it's worth putting eff…

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,…

How many of those extensions have 1mil+ users though. Its called prioritizing. The fact that they treat popular extensions just like one that tom wrote for him and his family to share pictures is poor mgmt. They are making money so there should be more accountability on Google's part even if they dont "have" to .

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

#759

Post by awinter-py »

KIFulgore wrote: post #748

This is scarily reminiscent of Facebook's App Review process. We submitted 8 identical Apps that, functionally, are just webhooks for Messenger events. All required documentation, justification for the two permissions we needed, screen casts, and test login credentials were submitted for the reviewers. 3 were approved. 5 were rejected - all for different reasons. Re-submitted the 5 with no changes; 2 more got approve…

did you write this up somewhere?

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

#760

Post by awinter-py »

ricktdotorg wrote: post #752
arseniclifeform wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By whole account deleted do you mean your Chrome dev "account" or your Google account including Gmail, Gcal, and YouTube? The latter is my greatest fear.

or pay them 6 bucks a month for a G Suite account instead of free gmail so you actually have the ability to call a 24/7 customer service phone number and yell and scream and get someone to find out why they removed access to your lifeblood account, and have access restored. it constantly amazes me that so many HN people put their ENTIRE LIVES/BUSINESSES in a free account that [has been proven, countless times] can be…

is the 'banned forever for no reason' situation different for paid accts?
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