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

kvirkvelia.com

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

#41

Post by teddyh »

PeterisP wrote: post #35
teddyh wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there's a page on their wiki that vaguely says A page titled “License Agreement”, clearly linked from the home page. (Regarding the 30%, I agree – this was questionable at best.)

The point is that licenses and license offers are self-sufficient, a "clarification" from another document simply does not constitute a binding clause in a license. If you have an offer of the MIT license from the author (as in the LICENSE.txt), then no clarifications or restrictions linked from the home page affect it, and other offers of other licenses are possible but not relevant if you like this particular offer…

Maybe. That’s a very… programmer-like way of looking at licenses, though, and it’s not necessarily compatible with how licenses are interpreted by judges.

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

#43

Post by bryanrasmussen »

teddyh wrote: post #26
Deukhoofd wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The software license is MIT, but there's a page on their wiki that vaguely says they take a cut of your earnings over 1000$. It definitely does not mention 30% however: > 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 > Ship our code with yours to end-user, no need paying a cent at al…

> there's a page on their wiki that vaguely says A page titled “License Agreement”, clearly linked from the home page. (Regarding the 30%, I agree – this was questionable at best.)

shady, but then again good enough for apple so..

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

#44

Post by kapp_in_life »

op00to wrote: post #30
joshstrange wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Kindly reminder, do not use a fake license key or a license key from others, do not share your license key with others. Abuse of the license key may cause negative impact. [0] This is the closest it gets to calling out the the 30% but I agree, it should be clearer. [0] https://github.com/floatinghotpot/cordova-admob-pro/wiki/Lic...

It shouldn't be clearer - the plugin author should require an affirmative response from the developer that they accept those terms.

The affirmative response is downloading and using the plugin.

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

#45

Post by Beltalowda »

op00to wrote: post #31

"If you have a high user traffic, please consider to get a license, it will be more cost-effective. Or else you might be unhappy someday." *"Or else you might be unhappy someday."* If that isn't a threat, I don't know what is. This guy's plugin should be removed immediately for such actions.

The author of this software is very clearly a non-native English speaker, and while more than skilled enough to communicate reasonably effective on technical matters, they're also not really skilled enough to fully grasp all the nuances of these types of things. I don't know what they intended with that exactly, but I'm sure not going to jump to conclusions.

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

#46

Post by jmnicolas »

It's what's worrying with running WordPress plugins: you mean I'm downloading some PHP code written by somebody unknown and this code executes whatever it wants on my server???!!!

It seems I'm the only one that is bothered by this.

And no I don't at the time nor the skill to audit everything or to use a static site like Hugo.

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

#47

Post by ericholscher »

Just a reminder to folks who are looking for alternative's, we're building an open source ad network for developer-focused sites: https://www.ethicalads.io/.

We also take 30% of the revenue (which is around industry standard), but it's very well-defined in our Publisher Policy: https://www.ethicalads.io/publisher-policy/

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

#48

Post by PeterisP »

joshstrange wrote: post #34
PeterisP wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A technical reading of the license suggests that the licensee can choose one of three options, the first of which is "Free and Open Source, no support", which fits the OP needs and is also the one offered in the LICENSE.txt of the repository. Nothing in that license offer requires them to pick the second - "commercial" - option for commercial use as the other two options don't prohibit commercial use, and if other of…

If you want to use the "Free and Open Source, no support" you also have to: > Fork the source code and maintain it yourself (bug fix, any future changes on Cordova and SDK, integration support, etc.); see the open source project here: https://github.com/floatinghotpot/cordova-plugin-admob Which I think it's clear that's not what happened here, the blog author was using AdMob Pro and thus unable to qualify for "Free a…

AdMob Pro has the exact same license (https://github.com/floatinghotpot/cordova-admob-pro/blob/mas...) and I see no reason whatsoever why someone using a product named "AdMob Pro" would be unable to use it as free and open source without support, certainly the name of the product does not influence that.

The author has written their license poorly in a stupid manner that allows everyone to use their product for free - that's why lawyers are useful and why for small developers it's a very good recommendation to use one of standard licenses instead of trying to write their own from scratch. As of now, perhaps due to the author's legal incompetence, the license also allows free usage for commercial purposes.

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

#49

Post by netr0ute »

new_guy wrote: post #42

That's what happens when you freeload. I think we're seeing more pushback now against people like this abusing free software from the developers who break their back to provide it. If you want to use it, PAY. FOR. IT.

> PAY. FOR. IT.

What about the Linux kernel and numerous other FOSS?

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

#50

Post by PeterisP »

teddyh wrote: post #7
ceejayoz wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The plugin guy can afford to be reasonable-ish. It reduces the likelihood of the scam being publicly disclosed, and I'd wager that 99% of people never notice the plugin is doing this.

How is it a “scam” if the terms are clearly posted? EDIT: The percentage increase from 2% to 30% was not posted; I withdraw my opinion on that.

The terms are not clearly stated, the explicit LICENSE document https://github.com/floatinghotpot/cordova-admob-pro/blob/mas... offers a standard MIT license, unlike the wiki description.
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