Earlier quoted context omitted.
Armin here, the developer of Search by Image. After that experience I felt it's necessary to share the entire discussion. That is how Google treats developers in exchange for enriching their platform, with a list of nonsense allegations, and if you speak up, retaliation. This practice is well documented at this point, and the best way out for those targeted is to hold your head down and maybe plead for help on social…
On the other hand, blindly accepting browser extension upgrades is a huge security vulnerability. There was a post some time ago about how popular extension projects often get bought by adware/spyware companies and they were able to publish malicious changes directly to user's browsers without any validation.
Firefox's old system of you needing to manually initiate upgrades was much more secure, and encouraged user responsibility for the code running on their machines. Google wants to infantilize the user, take away all choice, claim users can't make good decisions and then claim anything control they remove is for the user's benefit.
They're a bunch of stinking liers.
At this point anyone claiming to be a platform needs to regulated just like we regulate platforms before the internet.
I have a friend who works in the compliance department of one of the big international commodity exchanges. They are responsible for regulating the platform (his words) and preventing anything untoward happening, but that also means the company itself cannot "double deal" it can't participate in the markets in anyway. In addition they have two fed watchdogs that do regular invasive audits to ensure that they're actually following the laws and regulations.
It's time for internet companies to be put to the same standard:
If you call yourself a platform get ready to be treated as such.
If you don't wanna be a platform and you have 70%+ of the market get ready to get broken up.