Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

An ad plugin was stealing revenue for a year and I didn't even notice

kvirkvelia.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 195 posts

Re: An ad plugin was stealing revenue for a year and I didn't even notice

#141

Post by ceejayoz »

withinboredom wrote: post #136
Ansil849 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like their response is not at all an overreaction. The plugin author was underhanded in their conduct. I wouldn't want to use a platform which allowed nonsense like that to proliferate, so am happy to see dubious stuff like this removed. To me it signals that the platform owners care about what is on their platform and are concerned about their users. That is a good thing.

The article seems to be down for me. But I’ve gathered it was spelled out in the license? They even returned money? Removing a person’s revenue stream because someone wrote a blog post is by default, an overreaction. If they’re going to change it all anyway, why rush it?

> But I’ve gathered it was spelled out in the license?

A 2% cut was spelled out in the license.

A 30% cut was not, but the plugin author silently upped it to that over vague assertions of abuse of the plugin.

> "After check, we find your app in the black list, and a random higher rate will be applied. Usually when a guy is using a fake license key, or send unusual attacking request..."

Re: An ad plugin was stealing revenue for a year and I didn't even notice

#142

Post by iqanq »

simlevesque wrote: post #91
Kvirkvelia wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for your comment! I don't think taking 2% is theft. Maybe it's a dark pattern, but it's definitely not theft. In the article, I say that I calmed down after explaining with 2%, which means my agreement with the situation. The way the increase to 30% is made and the number of users with such a percentage says that the author deliberately increases the percentage without warning the user, which is theft

You using the software without a paid license was theft.

The licence allows the author of this article to even strip the part of the code that takes the 2% fee if he wanted to.

Re: An ad plugin was stealing revenue for a year and I didn't even notice

#143

Post by ceejayoz »

abofh wrote: post #107
kevingadd wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone committing a license violation does not magically grant you the ability to steal 30% of their revenue. If you want to punish the license violation, take them to court. Also note that the software is MIT licensed. Tucking some random additional clauses on your website or somewhere else doesn't magically change the licensing, if you don't want to use MIT (and make them free to use it) then don't use MIT.

You buying software with a revshare agreement 100% does.. You operate in the us? You pay the irs. You operate in Brazil, you pay them. The price was disclosed, optional and entered into freely. Dude is buying his lawyer a boat if he wants to fight it.

The revshare agreement was for 2%, not 30%.

The 30% was not disclosed and applied unilaterally. Per the email exchange:

> "After check, we find your app in the black list, and a random higher rate will be applied. Usually when a guy is using a fake license key, or send unusual attacking request...

Re: An ad plugin was stealing revenue for a year and I didn't even notice

#144

Post by InsomniacL »

abofh wrote: post #125
InsomniacL wrote: post #58

How anyone can defend this type of behaviour is beyond me. It is theft, the hidden cost in the licence agreement* states 2%, taking that up to %30 for no reason and with no warning based on some arbitrary 'black list' is theft. * as shady as that is

You.. Ran... Their.. Code.. How anyone can think they're entitled to assume how it should run is ignorance sufficient to shred what remains of my humanity. He didn't demand you give him money, he said if you ran his code, it will act as he intended. You ran his code. It worked as intended.

> You.. Ran... Their.. Code..

I did not...

> He didn't demand you give him money, he said if you ran his code, it will act as he intended.

He did not...

He said it would act one way, then it secretly acted another against the contract that was entered in to

> It worked as intended.

It did not...

Even their staff admit they never intended to charge him 30%

Re: An ad plugin was stealing revenue for a year and I didn't even notice

#145

Post by nerdawson »

liveoneggs wrote: post #139
nerdawson wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From their license agreement: > If you have used this plugin for FREE but monetized more than $1000, you are also required to get a license, or share us some Ad traffic as stated in win-win partnership model below. https://github.com/floatinghotpot/cordova-admob-pro/wiki/Lic... The project however includes the following the license: https://github.com/floatinghotpot/cordova-admob-pro/blob/mas... Surely releasing code…

The monitization bit is the "license" for use of the code. The MIT license applies to the source code itself, not the execution of it. MIT allows you to: "use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software". That's it.

Thank you. I’m realising my understanding of licenses was inaccurate and that I really ought to scrutinise projects more thoroughly.

Re: An ad plugin was stealing revenue for a year and I didn't even notice

#146

Post by [deleted] »

mox1 wrote: post #38
teddyh wrote: post #4

So he used code straight off GitHub, didn’t read the license terms, and then has the gall to call it “stealing” when the program does exactly as it says it would. Either learn to read licenses, or have a list of approved licenses (MIT, GPL, etc.) and only use software thus licensed. EDIT: What I mean above is the 2% which is specified in the “Licence Agreement” page – the article author is clearly considering this, t…

Yea, he is not the first to discover this. I ran into this exact issue (same github repo and software package), back in ~2013. In my case, this revenue sharing was quietly introduced during the plugin update. So I just forked an older version of their code and ran from that. I also made a post telling the guy it was kinda shady, they didn't seem to care.

[deleted]

Re: An ad plugin was stealing revenue for a year and I didn't even notice

#147

Post by pdpi »

javajosh wrote: post #83
Kvirkvelia wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for your comment! I don't think taking 2% is theft. Maybe it's a dark pattern, but it's definitely not theft. In the article, I say that I calmed down after explaining with 2%, which means my agreement with the situation. The way the increase to 30% is made and the number of users with such a percentage says that the author deliberately increases the percentage without warning the user, which is theft

I think it also speaks highly of you that you engaged with him, signed your name, and made rational arguments. These are not the actions of a thief, but of someone who has thought about their business model and is willing to stand by it. That said, if you really wanted to impress, you'd improve the visibility of your practices for each individual developer, by providing a dashboard that fully discloses revenue-over-t…

FYI, you're responding to the author of the article, not the author of the plugin :)

Re: An ad plugin was stealing revenue for a year and I didn't even notice

#148

Post by floatingatoll »

frankfrankfrank wrote: post #105

I feel there is a bigger issue here that I don't see anyone having brought up. Blogging dev was too cheap to just pay $20 for a license for code that would generate him money. THAT is really the bigger issue here, regardless of everything else, including the fact that he was in violation of the agreement, i.e., >$1,000 MRR. Here's a little pro tip for everyone, don't cheap out on paying someone $20 for the work they…

“No one thinks anyone else deserves payment for creating good work, unless they’re the one who could be getting paid, in which case it’s a travesty that they’re not” is an ethical standpoint that’s widespread in Silicon Valley. For example, it’s why Facebook users don’t receive dividend payments for the investment of their harvested data. “We realized that we could profit from inattention|opensource, so of course that’s ethical, because Finders Keepers rules” is a bad look for both parties in this post — the plug-in author who takes a revenue share without providing a financial statement, and the site operator who can’t be bothered to pay $20 for a core revenue stream of their site.

Re: An ad plugin was stealing revenue for a year and I didn't even notice

#149

Post by abofh »

javajosh wrote: post #83
Kvirkvelia wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for your comment! I don't think taking 2% is theft. Maybe it's a dark pattern, but it's definitely not theft. In the article, I say that I calmed down after explaining with 2%, which means my agreement with the situation. The way the increase to 30% is made and the number of users with such a percentage says that the author deliberately increases the percentage without warning the user, which is theft

I think it also speaks highly of you that you engaged with him, signed your name, and made rational arguments. These are not the actions of a thief, but of someone who has thought about their business model and is willing to stand by it. That said, if you really wanted to impress, you'd improve the visibility of your practices for each individual developer, by providing a dashboard that fully discloses revenue-over-t…

Who authorized the code to run?

Re: An ad plugin was stealing revenue for a year and I didn't even notice

#150

Post by abofh »

pdpi wrote: post #147
javajosh wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it also speaks highly of you that you engaged with him, signed your name, and made rational arguments. These are not the actions of a thief, but of someone who has thought about their business model and is willing to stand by it. That said, if you really wanted to impress, you'd improve the visibility of your practices for each individual developer, by providing a dashboard that fully discloses revenue-over-t…

FYI, you're responding to the author of the article, not the author of the plugin :)

We're super glad to have saved you from almost paying a developer
Post reply on HN