Unable to deal with Chrome Extension Team, Kozmos is shutting down • Hacker News Board

Re: Unable to deal with Chrome Extension Team, Kozmos is shutting down

#321

Post by hrktb » Sat, May 23, 2020, 11:42 PM UTC

doc_gunthrop wrote: post #312

One important thing that's missing from the author's story is the why . What is it that's triggering the robotic take-down notices?

This is of course an interesting point that would satisfy curiosity.

But if we are to accept the author’s central claim that it was reviewed and accepted by humans many times in these two years, the why isn’t really important. IMO it would just make the story more interesting, not critically different.

Now if you have reason to think that central claim is bullshit that’s another question.

PS: also in this types of automated triggers, getting to know what triggered the warnings is in itself a pretty hard task. I think a number of extensions just get removed without ever knowing exactly why it happened.

Re: Unable to deal with Chrome Extension Team, Kozmos is shutting down

#322

Post by Justsignedup » Sat, May 23, 2020, 11:42 PM UTC

stevenjohns wrote: post #264

roadbeats wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With leftpad he told Kik, "fuck you" In response to a threat starting with "We don’t mean to be a dick about it" and ending with "our trademark lawyers are going to be banging on your door and taking down your accounts and stuff like that", I did say "fuck you" to Kik. If that makes me the character in your mind, enjoy your imagination.

It seems that lots of people are missing that part. The Kik guys were doing their corporate double-speak b/s about ‘let’s find a solution’ when the only solution is handing over the name. All while threatening with door-banging lawyers. And he did offer them a solution: $30,000 dollars, to which they promptly - albeit indirectly - replied with fuck you .

The guy made a very valid point:

We must pursue our trademarks or risk losing them. We must. So can we make this amicable instead of hostile?

The maintainer could have requested things like "Okay can I make some blog posts and you help me with some SEO to make sure people are aware of the changes to my project name?" etc. Sounds like Kik was willing to be reasonable and help where they could. Clearly they could have gone in with an opening statement saying "this is the lawyer, I am sending trademark takedown notices, fuck you, go to hell" but they clearly did not.

This is one person trying to make the best of an awkward situation, and one person just saying "duces".

Re: Unable to deal with Chrome Extension Team, Kozmos is shutting down

#323

Post by grumple » Sat, May 23, 2020, 11:42 PM UTC

bartread wrote: post #209

Maybe they're still angry with him about leftpad. Yes, it really is the same guy: https://kodfabrik.com/journal/i-ve-just-liberated-my-modules . And, joking aside it would be wise to bear in mind that we're reading only one side of the story here. As with leftpad, there's another side to this. With leftpad he told Kik, "fuck you" ( https://medium.com/@mproberts/a-discussion-about-the-breakin... ), and then wrought gl…

Sounds like he's a pretty prolific developer who's sick of dealing with mega-corporate bureaucracies screwing him over.

Re: Unable to deal with Chrome Extension Team, Kozmos is shutting down

#324

Post by brutal_chaos_ » Sat, May 23, 2020, 11:45 PM UTC

roadbeats, why not port to Firefox? That browser/company respect your privacy, which seems to matter a lot to you. I don't have any personal experience, though I haven't read any(maybe one, many years ago?) horrible situations like yours at Moz://a

Re: Unable to deal with Chrome Extension Team, Kozmos is shutting down

#325

Post by type0 » Sat, May 23, 2020, 11:46 PM UTC

paulcole wrote: post #241

brankoB wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure but people understand the basic transaction (give money -> get milk). If on the other hand they gave you free milk but tracked your milk usage without telling you, I'd argue that's a non-consensual transaction and falls under stealing (roughly).

What about if someone gives you a free lunch but doesn’t tell you that they’re going to film you eating? Is that stealing?

> What about if someone gives you a free lunch but doesn’t tell you that they’re going to film you eating? Is that stealing?

More sinister than actually, "film you taking a shit and then sell it". As perverse as it sounds, but you won't even know it.

Re: Unable to deal with Chrome Extension Team, Kozmos is shutting down

#326

Post by soneil » Sat, May 23, 2020, 11:47 PM UTC

29083011397778 wrote: post #156

soneil wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last numbers I saw (2016-ish) put Advertising at 86% of Google's revenue (Or perhaps Alphabet's revenue? I'll admit that all that stuck in my head was this 86.) If those numbers are still anywhere near close, Google is an advertising company with some interesting side hustles. Just because Harley Davidson sell t-shirts, doesn't mean you'd describe them as anything other than a motorcycle company.

A hilariously apt comparison - after looking up Harley's breakdown, it looks like merch was ~10.5% of the revenue brought in by motorcycles (not parts/maintenance) in 2015. Granted, I'm not well-versed in looking at corporate financials, but the basic breakdown shown here [1] isn't terribly complex [1] https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/harley-davidson-rep...

I didn't realise it was actually that much - it's just the only HD product that anyone I personally know has ever bought, which was why it came to mind.

You did inspire me to go look up actual numbers for google though. Looking at FY Q4 - https://abc.xyz/investor/static/pdf/2019Q4_alphabet_earnings...

If I'm reading the first table correctly, the number for "google advertising" is the sum of all the lines above it, so that's the number I'll take. If we compare that against the bottom line, we get 82.3% for Q4, or 83.2% for FY19.

So either it's improving (from the viewpoint of someone with a distaste of the ad industry, at least), or I mis-remembered 2016's 86% - either way I can update or correct my claim.

Re: Unable to deal with Chrome Extension Team, Kozmos is shutting down

#327

Post by ziftface » Sat, May 23, 2020, 11:48 PM UTC

otterley wrote: post #276

roadbeats wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With leftpad he told Kik, "fuck you" In response to a threat starting with "We don’t mean to be a dick about it" and ending with "our trademark lawyers are going to be banging on your door and taking down your accounts and stuff like that", I did say "fuck you" to Kik. If that makes me the character in your mind, enjoy your imagination.

About twenty years ago, I learned a lesson the hard way I received a much more strongly worded cease-and-desist letter. I responded much the same way as you (though without the salty language), and a few weeks later, I got slapped with a multi-million dollar lawsuit for copyright infringement. You're lucky you were treated as nicely as you were. It could have been a whole lot worse. Lessons learned: 1. Hire an attorn…

That's really sad that that's good advice. I can't help but sympathize with him, and with you 20 years ago. Basically, your advice boils down to: "when a larger company tells you to do something, do it".

That's essentially what the lawyers at my friend's company told them as well, as they're dealing with a similar problem. Just because you have lawyers doesn't mean the answer will be any different; you very likely won't be able to deal with a lawsuit from a much larger company.

Re: Unable to deal with Chrome Extension Team, Kozmos is shutting down

#328

Post by otterley » Sat, May 23, 2020, 11:49 PM UTC

modernthumb wrote: post #314

otterley wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they didn't have to pay him $30k. They had a registered trademark and a right to use the name. And in the end, they didn’t have to spend nearly that amount. All they had to do was send a few emails to the npm maintainers. I’d say they made a logical decision.

I have a hard time seeing your position here. Because of their actions they broke their own build and made a lot of folks in the open source community upset. Was it even worth it to waste the time fixing their broken build? To investigate the failure and replace a dependency of a dependency? To lose credibility in the community they've evidently just decided to become involved with? I really don't see how that's not…

It is a principle of American and English law that the person who uses someone else’s property unlawfully is responsible for the foreseeable injuries caused to others by its use - not the lawful owner of the property.

Re: Unable to deal with Chrome Extension Team, Kozmos is shutting down

#329

Post by Technetium » Sat, May 23, 2020, 11:49 PM UTC

bartread wrote: post #209

Maybe they're still angry with him about leftpad. Yes, it really is the same guy: https://kodfabrik.com/journal/i-ve-just-liberated-my-modules . And, joking aside it would be wise to bear in mind that we're reading only one side of the story here. As with leftpad, there's another side to this. With leftpad he told Kik, "fuck you" ( https://medium.com/@mproberts/a-discussion-about-the-breakin... ), and then wrought gl…

You've remembered that the author has written another article at some point that is completely and wholeheartedly unrelated to this story; and the point it attempts to make. Why is this the top comment?

Re: Unable to deal with Chrome Extension Team, Kozmos is shutting down

#330

Post by pvg » Sat, May 23, 2020, 11:50 PM UTC

alias_neo wrote: post #311

pvg wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe Pushbullet needed it's permissions for the features it offered The PB post describes them removing permissions they realized they didn't need, you can check their writeup. Google's handling of this was poor but PB had real problems. In this extension's case, we haven't even seen what notices Google sent.

I'm all for enforcing strong privacy rules, in fact, I stopped using PB very quickly after trying it for the first time, because of the _feeling_ of a lack of privacy/security it gave me (based on no actual evidence), so I'm not defending PB. That said, calling Google heavy handed is an understatement, and there have been several cases which have made it clear that kicking up a fuss online and being big enough to get…

I didn't call it 'heavy handed'. I'm just correcting your assertion that PB didn't have unnecessary and overly-broad permissions. This is in their writeup.