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

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421–430 of 530 posts

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

#421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

“We must” is nonsense on the part of Kik. That’s part of the corporate b/s where people make it seem like things are “out of our hands.” If he was releasing a messenger app called KikAss, then sure, they “must” enforce the Kik trademark. But if I release a brand of shoes called Kik, with an api that allows users to poll how many steps a user has taken that day, that’s not a trademark violation. Trademark violations r…

> Trademark violations require intent to mislead

No, they don't, only probability of customer confusion.

Criminal counterfeiting charges require intent, IIRC.

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

#422
post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They would have loved that though! I mean Steam was made as a panicked reaction when Microsoft announced its Windows store. People in the industry knew very well what they were trying to do.

Steam predates any windows app store stuff by almost a decade, it wasn't a "panicked reaction" to anything.

Yeah, grandparent is misremembering a real event. Steam did do a panicked reaction to Windows store: a hard pivot to Linux support and the linux-based SteamOS.

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

#423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you explain the trademark misunderstanding in a bit more detail?

According to GitHub [0]: > Using another's trademark in a way that has nothing to do with the product or service for which the trademark was granted is not a trademark policy violation. Many people think that if you have a trademark, you have to sue everyone who uses your name no matter what capacity they're using it in, which doesn't seem to be the case. If their usage is unrelated to yours, you have no authority to…

Also people get carried away with how estoppel works. Estoppel is a basic principle in civil law that says if Alice tells Bob it's fine for him to do X, then even if Bob is infringing on Alice's lawful rights by doing X, she doesn't get to come back later and tell a court "Hey, Bob was infringing my rights by doing X".

And that's where it definitely stops, but people get carried away and imagine now if Alice tells Bob, "Enough, I need you to stop doing X by this reasonable time" and Bob says "Fuck you Alice" and keeps doing X the court will rule for Bob. Nope. And they imagine Bob's friend Charlie might show up too, and do X and Alice has to accept that because she told Bob previously it was fine, again Nope. As a result some businesses become convinced that unless they pay lawyers to threaten every hobby project starting with the same first letter as their product the terrible "estoppel" will destroy their business.

Also just as a general principle lawyers are for avoiding disputes first, fixing existing disputes as a last resort. If you're actively paying lawyers to start shit you are probably Doing It Wrong™.

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

#424
post #359
post #157

I definitely feel for the author - the Chrome Extension team has been growing increasingly developer-hostile recently. My own open-source extension HabitLab ( https://habitlab.stanford.edu/ ) that I've been maintaining for the past 3 years is going to be removed in 2 days (got a 14-day removal notice for permissions even though all permissions it requests are used and needed, and every update I try to submit is rejec…

> Some anonymized data will be sent to Stanford for research purposes. See our privacy policy for details. Maybe this text on your front page is triggering someone at Google extensions department?

When you are detained by the police, you don't have to do the guesswork of what you did wrong.

The police should/would tell you.

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

#425
post #269
post #157

I definitely feel for the author - the Chrome Extension team has been growing increasingly developer-hostile recently. My own open-source extension HabitLab ( https://habitlab.stanford.edu/ ) that I've been maintaining for the past 3 years is going to be removed in 2 days (got a 14-day removal notice for permissions even though all permissions it requests are used and needed, and every update I try to submit is rejec…

Dealing with Google these days seems a lot like dealing with an authoritarian government. To operate safely on Google's platforms, you need a friend who works at Google who can vouch for you as their over-eager police keep trying to put you in jail.

This is a manifestation of O'Sullivan's law as applies to corporate culture and it's a spot on assessment

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

#426
post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> film you taking a shit and then sell it

I actually got rejected from YC Summer 2019 with this idea. Demo Day would’ve been one to remember.

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

#429
post #269
post #157

I definitely feel for the author - the Chrome Extension team has been growing increasingly developer-hostile recently. My own open-source extension HabitLab ( https://habitlab.stanford.edu/ ) that I've been maintaining for the past 3 years is going to be removed in 2 days (got a 14-day removal notice for permissions even though all permissions it requests are used and needed, and every update I try to submit is rejec…

Dealing with Google these days seems a lot like dealing with an authoritarian government. To operate safely on Google's platforms, you need a friend who works at Google who can vouch for you as their over-eager police keep trying to put you in jail.

Zomg good thing this is visible.

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

#430

STOP BUILDING FOR CHROME. THEY WILL DELETE YOU. THEY WILL INVALIDATE YOU. OR THEY WILL COPY YOU.

Go ahead and downvote... same goes for Amazon (hello antirust), Facebook, and any other company. They are not your friend... they are your adversary.
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