Not too long ago I remember people on this exact site making the argument that Slack had a right to determine what browser extensions I ran. Slack also tried to make this argument in the name of "security" when I wrote to them about it. But yes to your point, NO they do not get a say in what users install.
Thank you for taking the time to write in and share
your concerns.
We hear you and understand how important this issue is
to developers. As a communication company we want to
make sure we don't put our customers and their data at
risk, and it's something we take very seriously. We
provide a full-featured platform with many avenues for
improving user experience while working with Slack, but
we need to also provide the security and privacy
controls business owners, IT administrators, and users
expect. We're happy to continue the conversation about
UX improvements and future extensions to the platform.
This is something we'll keep working on as we listen to
feedback from the developer community.
That is a cop out and you know it. An it administrator
or corporate is not using this extension and they would
lock down their users from installing BROWSER
extensions if they thought that was a security risk.
Thanks for getting back to me. I appreciate your
thoughts on this matter.
I'd like to pose a hypothetical to you if you don't
mind! Bearing in mind Slack is a product designed to
help teams work together and is geared towards business
and enterprises — imagine for a second we're working
with an enterprise considering adopting Slack and their
security team comes across this extension (or something
like it) — and identifies it as a
security/privacy/reliability concern. Our job is to
alleviate these concerns. They expect better from us
and we're doing our best to meet and even exceed those
expectations. We're certainly not perfect and we can
always do better — for businesses big and small and for
developers.
It is important to note here, we're learning from this
experience. We're working with the developer to find a
middle-ground which is beneficial to everyone involved.
We're reevaluating our processes for these situations.
We're listening to feedback from users such as yourself
and identifying areas we could improve.
I understand this has been a disappointing and
frustrating situation and I do apologise for any
difficulty it has caused you. I promise you, we're
working on it. I for one am very excited to see what
comes from this. It's been a learning opportunity for
us all.
Let me know if you have any questions, or suggestions.
I'm here to help!