
Unable to deal with Chrome Extension Team, Kozmos is shutting down - roadbeats
https://kodfabrik.com/journal/why-am-i-shutting-down-kozmos
======
geza
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/](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 rejected by their
system after about 3-4 days) and I feel utterly helpless. It's only used by
about 12,000 users so unlike PushBullet I probably don't have the visibility
to get a human to intervene, so will be going the way of Kozmos most likely.

~~~
panic
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.

~~~
prox
And its one of the reasons people should stop using google products, or it
will get worse.

I am 99% on DuckDuckGo and other search engines, Firefox (which is great),
Lots of mail providers these days which excel on every front, lots devtools
that don’t need any Google infrastructure,

I really hope one of these days we get a message from Google (btw Google is
really the most faceless organization out there, I really need to think hard
to give you any names) that they will change their tune, but until that time,
its best to leave.

~~~
stanislavb
Yup, DuckDuckGo's been my default browser search engine for quite some time
now. I'm quite happy with the results. I'm reaching out to google.com less and
less every day.

The last straw will be abandoning Gmail :)

~~~
danShumway
I don't if this will help you make that decision, but Fastmail's alias system
is a godsend for me when it comes to filtering incoming emails and protecting
myself from spam.

With every account you get a finite number of aliases you can create, but in
practice that number is high enough that I just use a new alias for every site
I visit.

Unlike in Gmail, these aliases don't contain any references to your original
address. So if you're signing up for a dogwalking service, you can create an
alias for `ilovewalkingdogs@fastmail.com`, and then if you start getting spam
to that address, you know where it came from, you know that there's no chance
your real address will be reverse-engineered from your alias, and you can
auto-reject or sort everything to that address into a separate folder without
affecting any of your other emails.

I have separate email aliases I distribute to friends and family members so
that if I ever run into a doxing situation or for some reason need to go
nuclear on my email, I can turn everything off except for them. I also have my
email linked to my own domain of course, but when I sign up for most
commercial services, I use @fastmail.com aliases. That way I know that there's
no way for those services to track me across accounts/websites via my personal
domain name.

And everything gets organized in the same inbox, same account. I consider it
to be a killer feature.

~~~
omnimus
I don't want to spoil any joy of yours but this is in my experience pretty
standard with most email providers.

With some you can do the + trick (which gmail probably still does) but i just
have my domain as catchall and it works pretty great with blacklisting.

~~~
danShumway
The reason Fastmail's feature matters is specifically because it's not using
the + trick or a catch-all domain. They're 'real' aliases, not just Regex
filters or wildcards.

If you're using the + trick, you haven't gained any privacy, because I can
strip the + and get your original address.

If you're using a catch-all domain, you haven't gained any privacy, because
the domain remains a unique identifier for your all of your accounts. It's
good for organizing, but not for privacy, because you're still publicly
attaching your identity to every email you send.

With fastmail, I don't need to do myaddress+walmart@fastmail.com or
walmart@danshumway.com. I can just do walmart@fastmail.com. That's a really
large privacy win, since it gets rid of one of the biggest and least regulated
unique identifiers that services can share with each other.

I don't know if other providers like Outlook are also offering 'real' aliases.
I'm happy if they are, I think this should be an industry standard feature.
Either way, switching to any provider does will be a pretty significant
feature upgrade over Gmail, even if you're currently using a paid Gmail
account with your own domain.

~~~
omnimus
I see so the only difference is that they provide 600 aliases on their domain
compared to lets say 25 of other providers. I wonder how they deal with
poluted namespace.

So It so different from random domain catchall?

The reason why i would be worried about Fastmail is that they have are
Australian company with servers in US. Both of those mean that Law enforcement
can simply ask for users emails.

Now i am for sure not target of Law enforcement or goverment so i dont care
but i am not sure why i wouldnt use service thats in better juristiction and
is privacy focused.

------
iforgotpassword
I get it, Google loves to automate stuff to save money. Makes sense, I agree.
But I'm seriously wondering if all the people in charge of automating such
processes are those delusional ego-programmers who think they can solve
anything with machine learning, aka "AI". Really, I cannot understand that
there aren't basic safeguards in place like "hey this extension got repeatedly
flagged and when a human finally reviewed it we found it was a mistake each
time, so maybe set a flag on this extension to double-check next time". Or
maybe, have such incidents automatically bubble up to the team responsible for
the automatic screening. But why do that if you're a wunderkind programmer who
never makes mistakes?

Sorry, this is the only explanation I have for this, I've worked with this
kind of person twice. Once they got the first version of something running
they are done, no further testing, no sanity checks, no asserts or
logger.warn() for "this can never happen" branches.

~~~
georgeecollins
The other explanation is that they don't really want users to have most
browser extensions. The browser extensions either become features that google
wants to embed in the browser, or things they don't want, for business
reasons. In either case it is better if the extension dies after a year or so.

BTW, this doesn't have to be a conscious choice of anyone at Google, it could
just be the way the incentives turn out.

~~~
cutemonster
A bookmarking service sounded to me like something Google wanted to operate
themselves, and I was thinking maybe that was related to why it got taken
down.

At the same time, it seemed to not have had that many users yet, so, a bit
early for Google to pay attention?

~~~
randomdude402
Google already has a bookmarking service at
[https://www.google.com/bookmarks/](https://www.google.com/bookmarks/)

I have stuff saved in there dating from 2007 to 2015. Used to use a Firefox
extension to load them in the sidebar.

~~~
frankacter
I was surprised to see that is not the same bookmarks synced in my Chrome
Browser. That's the case with
[https://passwords.google.com/](https://passwords.google.com/) . Is their a
webview of synced Chrome bookmarks (I couldn't find one) and what use case is
google.com/bookmarks?

~~~
thw0rted
Oh that is trippy, not only does the link from the GP not include my Chrome
sync'd bookmarks, all the recent activity on it is places I've starred in
Google Maps (!).

------
mcrittenden
I maintain a paid Chrome extension
([https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/shortkeys-
custom-k...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/shortkeys-custom-
keyboard/logpjaacgmcbpdkdchjiaagddngobkck)) and I've had a very similar
experience with the frustrating repeat automated shutdown emails, except that
so far my extension hasn't been actually shut down. I'm just waiting for the
day that it happens at this point. I'm surprised it has not happened before
now, since my extension requires a lot of permissions to do its job.

In my case, I make a nice little side income from that extension so it would
be a noticeable income hit. But I'm not sure of anything I can really do to
prevent it from being shut down if and when Google's robots decide the time
has come.

~~~
droitbutch
An interesting extension but I am a bit surprised - it seems the target users
are developers, which generally have the wherewithal to download the repo and
install themselves - how does this result in a "noticeable income"?

Sorry, not trying to be obtuse, just curious from a side-income perspective.

~~~
mcrittenden
It surprised me too. I started charging a few months ago after it was free for
~7 years. Now I'm making $600 a month off of it.

Paying users seem to be part productivity nerds who maybe aren't technical
enough to grok installing from the repo, and part people who just choose to
pay for the automatic upgrades or to support the developer. Also, lots of
users are web gamers who use it for in-game automation.

I wrote a post about it 1 week after monetizing, if you're curious:
[https://critter.blog/2020/01/14/week-1-of-monetizing-my-
chro...](https://critter.blog/2020/01/14/week-1-of-monetizing-my-chrome-
extension/)

------
tdeck
> Google (Robot): We'll take your extension down

Me: Hey, this must be a mistake

> Google (Robot): No mistake, review these policies, your extension violates
> one of them

Me: It does not violate any of them, this is a mistake!

> Google (Finally human): Oh, sorry, a mistake.

Obviously someone just needs to create a robot that automatically replies to
the takedown notices and disputes them, thus closing the loop!

~~~
dade_
Somehow I expect that using a bot against their bot violates user TOS part
#63836370 section YQ, and they will immediately lock your accounts, associated
business accounts, delete the data and offer zero recourse.

~~~
erichocean
And laugh about it, because they think it's funny.

------
calpaterson
I have a side-project that is partially a browser extension. I use a single
codebase for both Firefox and Chrome.

Even with my trivial side-project and a grand total of two releases so far,
Google ar itrarily rejected one release for being "spammy" when there was
literally a 5 line diff between it and the previous release. Thankfully just
finding the depreciated dashboard and uploading an icon (the "new dashboard"
doesn't have this feature yet apparently) got it through after resubmitting
it.

It feels like they've set themselves as gatekeepers of Chrome extensions
(Windows users can only install from the "store") but they aren't actually
interested in doing the job even though you pay an admin fee for the privilege
of developing a free extension for their browser.

~~~
kyleee
Your best course of action is to drop chrome support, and make your extension
as good as possible and make a point of marketing that it's firefox only. Most
won't do it due to worrying about market share, but alas IMO it's the best
option available

~~~
calpaterson
I use Firefox personally and originally made the thing for myself. I added
Chrome support because Chrome is much more popular (not far from ten times
more popular these days :() and people I would like to use this, eg friends
and family, mostly use Chrome.

I couldn't ask them to switch browsers for my little side project. I have to
co-operate with Google's bureaucracy. For what it's worth, so far it seems
like Mozilla is not exactly streets ahead, but at least they didn't charge me
and they seem to be fairer and more helpful to extension developers (they have
a "self-distribution" mode with relaxed oversight I used while in private
alpha, and their tools and docs are better).

~~~
IggleSniggle
I think it would be perfectly reasonable to promote Firefox to your friends
and family as "simply the better choice" irrespective of your own interests.

When Chrome was better, I suggested friends and family use Chrome. Now I think
most people would benefit from using Firefox as their primary driver.

~~~
CathedralBorrow
Are you including the change cost here, which will be many times higher for
most of the population vs. HN? Even if I thought that Firefox was a better
choice, I'd recommend to my friends and family to keep using whatever they are
using unless they have to switch for some reason.

~~~
chris_wot
What, precisely, is the cost?

~~~
Larrikin
Lazy web devs that only test in Chrome and maybe safari that constantly break
things in other browsers. I don't mind sending the angry support email and
using chrome for a single task here and there but others might.

~~~
adrianN
I never used Chrome and never encountered a website that didn't work on
Firefox. I think this concern is a bit overblown.

~~~
Larrikin
Bank of America didn't work for the better part of last year. Chase Rewards
are currently broken since last week. Its easy to drop small sites that don't
test but my experience has been they actually bother testing and it's the
major sites that actually have problems.

~~~
thejynxed
I've had Firefox fail to work properly on the sites of Slashdot, Amazon,
Newegg, Chase, BoA, GE, Walmart, the IRS, PennDOT, Mozilla's own org site,
WaPo, NPR, Fox, Disney, and a whole host of others.

------
fiddlerwoaroof
The worst outcome of the iPhone is the general move of programmers from people
who write software for a platform the user fully controls to people who write
software for a platform controlled by a company that the user borrows a device
from.

~~~
whathappenedto
Yeah, everyone's known that platform dependence is risky, and every decade or
so we "learn our lesson" but then forget the moment the next cool platform
comes along if it has enough users.

~~~
throwaway2048
its not so much forgotten as aggressively dismissed and mocked as tin foil
hattery.

~~~
willis936
It’s almost like the companies with more money than governments and complete
control over what content users see might shape the world to keep their
profits high.

One way to tell if a conspiracy is crazy is if it doesn’t benefit rich people.
This pretty clearly passes that test.

~~~
throwaway2048
You don't have to believe conspiracy theories to think centralization is bad.
Sometimes bullshit "they" don't want you to know about is still bullshit.

------
bartread
Maybe they're still angry with him about leftpad.</joke>

Yes, it really is the same guy: [https://kodfabrik.com/journal/i-ve-just-
liberated-my-modules](https://kodfabrik.com/journal/i-ve-just-liberated-my-
modules). And, joking aside it would be wise to bear in mind that we're
reading only one side of the story here. As with leftpad, there's another side
to this.

With leftpad he told Kik, "fuck you"
([https://medium.com/@mproberts/a-discussion-about-the-
breakin...](https://medium.com/@mproberts/a-discussion-about-the-breaking-of-
the-internet-3d4d2a83aa4d#.ld8o5zqz7)), and then wrought global havoc on npm
users. Now he's claiming the Chrome Extension Team "continuously troll
developers", and is pulling down something he's created... again.

I only have two data points, so the behaviour here is a coincidence rather
than a pattern, but I will guarantee you whatever you think of Google there is
more to this than meets the eye.

I'm not without sympathy for the author, but neither am I about to
uncritically take his side.

~~~
roadbeats
> With leftpad he told Kik, "fuck you"

In response to a threat starting with "We don’t mean to be a dick about it"
and ending with "our trademark lawyers are going to be banging on your door
and taking down your accounts and stuff like that", I did say "fuck you" to
Kik.

If that makes me the character in your mind, enjoy your imagination.

~~~
stevenjohns
It seems that lots of people are missing that part. The Kik guys were doing
their corporate double-speak b/s about ‘let’s find a solution’ when the only
solution is handing over the name. All while threatening with door-banging
lawyers.

And he did offer them a solution: $30,000 dollars, to which they promptly -
albeit indirectly - replied with _fuck you_.

~~~
Justsignedup
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 gone in with an opening
statement saying "this is the lawyer, I am sending trademark takedown notices,
fuck you, go to hell" but they clearly did not.

This is one person trying to make the best of an awkward situation, and one
person just saying "duces".

~~~
stevenjohns
“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 require intent to mislead, or they could be
unintentionally confusing (for example, if Kik has been talking about
releasing shoes for a while or if it’s a well known brand of soccer balls).

Neither of these things have occurred, so the trademark doesn’t have to go
through a (futile) enforcement process.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Trademark violations require intent to mislead

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

Criminal counterfeiting charges require intent, IIRC.

~~~
stevenjohns
If you see the second half of that sentence, with an example of how...

> or they could be unintentionally confusing [to the customer]

~~~
albedoa
We see the second half. Your sentence reduces to:

> Trademark violations require intent to mislead, or they do not require
> intent to mislead.

You are trying to assert that this makes sense and that the second half makes
the first half correct. Neither is true.

~~~
stevenjohns
I’m not sure what you’re trying to achieve by leaving multiple successive
comments threads about the same topic. I will reply to this message and will
withdraw after this.

——

The sentence reduces to “trademark violations are considered to have taken
place regardless of when there is either an intention to mislead or if a
customer was unintentionally misled.”

If the grammar was poop and you can’t make a good faith reading of it (to go
so far as to follow me around on this post) then by all means feel free to
comment away but I won’t be responding to it.

~~~
albedoa
Another expression of your stereotype:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23360585](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23360585)

------
deadwing0
Is it possible that Google writes code to automate the moderation (for lack of
better word) of the extensions in the Chrome Store because they are trying to
avoid paying hundreds of people to do it manually? I know it's easy to say
"Google doesn't care about you," and generally it as a company may not care,
but they also are not in the business of putting us out of business.

It feels like to me that they have just become a sprawling mass of
interconnected yet disjointed divisions but without any real customer service
department that can handle the amount of requests or situations like in OP. I
am not on their side in any way, but Occam's razor and all, it just seems the
most likely explanation to me is that they are just too cheap to pay people to
handle the volume of customer issues they have? Or would it not be
economically feasible? What do y'all think?

[Edited to divide into two paragraphs for slightly easier reading]

~~~
city41
I can’t see how a healthy browser extension ecosystem would help Google.
Without Google getting any real value out of it, it makes total sense they do
a poor job managing it.

~~~
deadwing0
I somewhat agree, yet wouldn't a healthy extension ecosystem (excellent term,
btw) attract more users to Chrome and in turn keep users more entwined in the
larger Google ecosystem? I guess there is a cost/benefit analysis done. They
put just enough effort into it to get the return or results they want. The
little guys like OP (who arguably make the best content because it's open
source and not full of trackers or other junk) just get stepped on along the
way.

~~~
city41
I don’t know at all, but if I had to guess extension usage is pretty low. I’m
not sure the average user really sees browser extensions as something they
need. They aren’t as obvious as say mobile apps. On the flip side, extensions
like Honey seem to suggest at least enough people use them to be of some
worth.

~~~
thejynxed
Some of the more popular extensions have thirty+ million users, and this is
for trivial fluff functionality. When you hit up the extensions dealing with
adblocking or say, interacting with Instagram, they can hit 100+ million
easily.

------
hkyeti
As someone who's Google ad account was mysteriously suspended for no given
reason (even before a single ad was run) and am now up to 4 days waiting with
no reply nor phone number I can call, I hear you..

------
omnifischer
It is disgusting that no one from media asks Sundar Pichai touch questions
like:

1\. Non human (AI) usage for termination google accounts. 2\. No repeal
process

At least some employee from Google here in hn must do things and understand
mentality of other people.

It increasingly looks like - well... we employees live in bubble but if you
are unlucky then you are screwed. Do not ask us?

What kind of programmers wrote such code that terminates account without human
intervention? Please do not blame it on Project Managers.

You are human - so is some one that was affected by your code.

Amen

~~~
gdulli
I just created a Google Voice account for the first time. A few hours later I
asked 3 different friends to send me a text message to see if it worked. I
didn't get any of them or any warning that it takes time for the number to
activate.

I tried again the next day, same results. That was 4-5 days ago, and still
nothing. I'm abandoning Google Voice because I assume Google has abandoned it.
It's not like there's anyone I can ask.

This is just an inconvenience to me. I can't imagine what it's like to have a
service I actually rely on and then lose it.

~~~
jjoonathan
Gaslighting is the worst.

It's getting more common, too. Just the other day I found out that posting
links in a youtube comment makes the comment invisible to everyone else. In
hindsight, disallowing links is almost certainly a good policy and it's easy
to understand and appreciate why it was put in place, but why the gaslighting?
Just pop up a box explaining that links aren't allowed. The gaslighting isn't
going to fool spammers for long enough to be a meaningful deterrent, but it
_is_ going to trip up legitimate users enough to meaningfully degrade their
experience.

Time to visit my bitwarden and port another account off gmail (my late new-
years resolution is to port an account off gmail every time I get myself
worked up about something google did -- funnel the useless frustration into
something worthwhile.)

~~~
paulryanrogers
I think the term is shadow banning

~~~
syshum
They invented the term shadow banning because "gas lighting" has very negative
connotations.

Shadow banning is 100% a form of gas lighting, and IMO should be considered
just as unethical. If you are going to ban someone, words, or actions be
upfront and clear about the rules and bans

------
dorkinspace
It seems like trying to build a business on any Google property is simply a
bad idea. Or, if you do, have an alternative ready for when Google shuts down
the product or cancels your account.

~~~
speeder
My "RL" business, that has nothing to do with tech, relies heavily on Google
ads, whenever we lessen the spending on them, our income drop proportionally,
I am very worried about what will happen when they yank our account due to a
mistake, but I am yet to figure out an alternative, other ad providers made no
difference...

~~~
nihil75
I made such a mistake - hosted a static page on AWS S3 with a redirect. Google
didn't like that. AdWords account blocked, no one to talk to but the bots!

------
nyreed
Do you remember when browser extensions could be installed from a developer's
own website and didn't require any kind of dysfunctional 'gatekeeping'?

I know there are benefits to having someone vet browser extensions, but it
seems a shame that they remove the self-distribution option completely when
their moderation is so ineffectual.

~~~
bad_user
Yes I do remember.

Then extensions started being a spyware / malware delivery mechanism, with
popular ones being bought and turned overnight. Coupled with browser plugins
shoved down on the user's throat by various Windows software, this made
Firefox unusable, at least on Windows.

It's why back in 2010 I started recommending Chrome to family, because Chrome
installations kept being clean. It's why we can't have nice things.

~~~
Tehdasi
From malwarebytes: "Spyware. Although it sounds like a James Bond gadget, it’s
actually a type of malware that infects your PC or mobile device and gathers
information about you, including the sites you visit, the things you download,
your usernames and passwords, payment information, and the emails you send and
receive."

Yep, Google is certainly protecting us from companies that do that.

~~~
WesolyKubeczek
Both Chrome webstore and Google play are infested with spyware, maladware and
such. Yet it’s not a problem when the big G is pimping them.

------
Guzba
There are people inside Google that must have thought this review and
communication process was a Good Idea. It wouldn't have gotten built
otherwise.

Will these individuals continue to be putting Good Ideas into production
indefinitely or is there some sort of immune response inside Google?

I have no interest in a scape goat or anything like that, I'm just curious if
there's a way to incorporate the real-world consequences of choices like this
into who is empowered to make choices going forward.

~~~
downerending
One thing I've noticed working for a variety of companies is that highly
profitable companies generally do _not_ have consequences for even fairly
dramatic failures, both in terms of how they treat customers and how they
treat employees. They simply have too much money, so there's little need to do
so.

In a tiny company, a large failure can easily be the end of the company, so
they're far more motivated to care about things like customer happiness, etc.

~~~
sneak
Relevant:
[https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2020/05/23/gap/](https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2020/05/23/gap/)

This story is about infra, but it applies just as much for product.

~~~
downerending
Interesting read. I've never worked for a company that tried to do a
reasonably serious post mortem on a disaster. Or perhaps I was simply never
one of the cool kids that were invited.

It's pleasant to think that that's actually happening somewhere. Usually it's
probably more like Google+ ( _gosh, we did everything right, but somehow it
just didn 't work out--oh well, it wasn't that much money after all, and hey,
we can keep using it internally_).

------
reidacdc
I see these stories from time to time, and I can't help but wonder if there's
an opportunity for some kind of third-party support for Google.

Like, if you were a former Googler or someone who'd been through their
customer-support wringer, and you had some contacts, you could set yourself up
as a consultant for small-scale Google account holders who run into this.
Charge a fee for access to your higher-tier contacts, maybe even sell "Google
insurance", a group of small devs could pool some money to pay for access to
Google support when the hammer randomly falls on one of them.

This idea brought to you by my experience with various government
bureaucracies, which are nominally publicly accessible, but, due to under-
staffing and high demand for services, are more productively approached
through the right kind of lawyer.

~~~
xg15
> _Charge a fee for access to your higher-tier contacts, maybe even sell
> "Google insurance"_

There are organisations that already work like this in many countries of the
world. That's usually what we want to get away from.

------
xg15
Old and busted: Google unexpectedly cancelling their products.

New hotness: Google unexpectedly cancelling _other peoples '_ products.

~~~
o10449366
Google must be an awesome place to work as an engineer because apparently you
just generally don't have to worry about deprecating your products/services or
interacting with your customers. Amazon is notorious for their oncall and
stubbornness when it comes to sunsetting services. Everyone I know that works
there hates the burden that comes with being "customer obsessed." I never hear
any complaints like that from the people I know at Google.

~~~
mschuster91
Amazon is good _if you are the customer_. If you are a vendor, you're as
fucked as if you'd use Paypal, the horror stories about automated systems
booting people off of Amazon with no way to reach a human that can override
the decision are rampant.

~~~
labster
Amazon is good if you are the customer, right up until they use the data they
collected from your product to launch their own competing service.

------
leonardteo
I feel you...

We had similar issues with the Google Play store for the ArtStation App
([https://magazine.artstation.com/2018/12/happened-
artstation-...](https://magazine.artstation.com/2018/12/happened-artstation-
android-app/)), it simply got taken down and appealing continually got
rejected. It was only after the issue got picked up as the top story on Hacker
News and other sites that exposed the dysfunctional nature of their moderation
that finally Google subtly changed their policy so that if the content is
primarily “artistic” it’s allowed, but the catch is that only they deem what
is appropriate and not...

We recently updated our Chrome extension also and it just seems to me that not
a whole lot of effort is going into the Chrome Web Store, at least on the
developer side where you update the extensions.

~~~
renewiltord
Oh I knew Apple applied the prude-policy to their store. I did not realize
Google did too. Interesting.

~~~
flanbiscuit
Yet for some reason does not flag the Reddit, Instagram, and Twitch app with
similar or worse content. I wonder if their algorithm has special exceptions
built in to ignore apps specifically by name or by "downloads > X".

------
antjanus
Wish I had known about this product. This seems like a really awesome
bookmarking service -- better than most I've seen. :(

This is also so terribly common. I had a Twitter account get suspended for 2
months...with no explanation. I appealed it but it still took 2 months. What
if that had been my main source of revenue? They restored the account without
much explanation.

We really need _real_ people to make decisions like this. Oh it's not
scaleable? Then maybe it's not a product you can sustain.

~~~
temac
> What if that had been my main source of revenue?

I'm not saying that people who did are in the wrong, but yeah, don't do that.
Likewise, it is very risky to have Youtube as a unique source of revenue, etc.
Or even to diversify but across the same platform company/holding...

You should not take such critical dependencies _even_ if they had real people
doing proper reviews, because they can very well change their terms when they
want, in unpredictable ways.

~~~
antjanus
Oh, I agree! There are so many YT creators now that discuss how their videos
are demonetized and how it's fucking them over but they're okay because of
Patreon support.

Same with me. If I lost my Twitter account, I could rebuild it -- my _actual_
following at the time had more to do with my blog and RSS (miss those days :(
); however, it shows that you can't really trust that an account is yours or
that as long as you follow rules, you get to keep using the site. Or that
you'll get a "fair trial" when you're accused of breaking rules.

It doesn't help that these companies also punish you for getting accused when
they _do_ have manual review. One of my photos on FB got mistakenly flagged,
reviewed and approved that it's fine, and I still had a 7-day ban from
posting/commenting. Youtube has that 3 strikes rule or whatever where if you
get accused 3 times or more of copyright infringement (even if false and
retracted), you lose monetization.

------
Cymen
Hi Azer! It's been a while.

I had the same problem with a Chrome extension for my side project Defero
(school information system). It uses InboxSDK to integrate the Defero address
book with GMail. Unfortunately, it got flagged for security review and it kept
getting rejected no matter what I changed. I ended up concluding my
authentication mechanism and/or my use of InboxSDK was causing problems so I'm
going to try changing the authentication mechanism.

But working with the Google to try to get it fixed and finding the cryptic
warnings they hide in various parts of the developer console has been
extremely annoying. I don't blame you for your decision.

------
mcintyre1994
I have to wonder how PayPal are feeling about their $4 billion acquisition of
Honey now, which requests permission to read/write on all websites and exists
solely as a browser extension. They're on multiple browsers, but I doubt
either Mozilla or Apple will be particularly interested to protect what's
presumably now a massive PayPal data mining operation.

~~~
lethologica
I would think lawyers at PayPal would have a little more 'pull' than a single
developer though.

~~~
syshum
I doubt it would have to go to the lawyers, I am sure the exec's of both
companies are members of the same organizations, country clubs, or other
social circles

------
ianwalter
It's a shame that so many of the comments have to do with left-pad. Kozmos was
a great piece of software and I will miss it even though I haven't used it in
a while. It came very close to how I personally think a bookmarking service
should work, which is pretty incredible for something made by a single person.
Seems like a lot of people have been complaining about the Chrome extension
store lately. I wonder what's going on behind the scenes there. Anyway,
looking forward to your next project Azer.

~~~
thread_id
I would really benefit from this product. I'm working across three computers
and I have book marks all over the place. A central repository that enhances
searching and categorization would be awsome.

~~~
ianwalter
Yea, I actually offered to take over development of Kozmos, but wasn't taken
up on the offer. I'm going to build my own solution one day, just because I am
so interested in it, but until then I use Raindrop.

------
monadic2
I imagine it must be painful to tie your agency to a large corporate entity
that clearly doesn’t give a shit about you.

~~~
m-p-3
All hail our indifferent corporate overlords.

------
vzaliva
I had a small harmless extension which does not access ANY user information
and completely client-side. I received cryptic takedown notice and was not
able to convince them it is not in violation of their policies. They never
specify what policy exactly you violate, just keep referring to the whole
document. Finally I decided it is not worth it and took down my extension.

------
scottporad
I’m sorry that you had that experience. Maybe enough up votes will get
Google’s attention.

~~~
toomuchtodo
There’s only one developer advocate on the Chrome extension team; hopefully
they see this!

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23198629](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23198629)

~~~
bjornstar
Instead of coming on here and addressing the issue, he tweeted this instead:

Thanks for the tag. Looks like the author's core issue is (understandably)
with the construction of the system itself. I'm not sure what I can do here
other than listen and reiterate that we are trying to work to address these
issues.

\-
[https://twitter.com/DotProto/status/1264331488029376513](https://twitter.com/DotProto/status/1264331488029376513)

A month ago he said:

For context, we're currently planning to create a team that will respond to
escalations with more meaningful information about a rejection.

\- [https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msg/chromium-
exte...](https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msg/chromium-
extensions/o3I5pFH5z_g/FnvY0pI3AwAJ)

But the situation only appears to be getting worse and no one at Google
appears to care enough to do anything about it.

I have an extension that is once again in rejection form mail purgatory and it
makes me want to take my extensions off of the Google Chrome Web Store as
well.

------
cryptoquick
I wonder if anyone is keeping track of just how many developers are completely
writing off Google just because their support is so terrible, and their
policies so absurdly draconian.

People give shit to Jeff Bezos all the time, but compared to Google, there is
no comparison to the level of company-wide user hostility and blatant privacy
violations with such little public accountability, as that of Google's.

------
droitbutch
Scrolling through the comments, many seem to think this was unintentional,
mistake, or overzealous AI. However, the author said this has been ongoing for
2years:

> "Google's Chrome Extension team has been giving me a complete nightmare
> since last two years."

What if the extension violated some policy that he either overlooked or is not
publicly stated?

~~~
rdgthree
Generally if you take the approach "what might I be doing wrong?" instead of
aggressively asserting "I am doing nothing wrong!", you're able to uncover
some solution on your side. I rarely ever try to deal with support because it
often ends in no/poor resolutions.

I would guess there's something in this extension that looks very similar to
suspicious activity (regardless of whether it is) and some light refactoring
would resolve the issue of repeated flagging.

Not suggesting this is right or good, but it's probably less time consuming
and more effective than emailing back and forth for two years.

------
VohuMana
I keep seeing these things pop up on here and I am starting to get the sense
that the Chrome team at Google feels it is too big to fail. They don't seem to
care about fixing their system, but once developers leave to your competitor
you're in trouble. Just look at Windows Phone, pretty solid OS had some nice
features that Android and iOS didn't but at the end of the day no developers
really wanted to make apps for it so it died a slow death.

With the new Edge supporting Chrome Extensions, I wonder if some of these devs
are going to move their extensions over to that or do like Kosmos and just
move on to some other project that is outside the reach of Google.

All in all it is sad to see Kosmos go, I used it back in 2017 and really liked
it. I didn't make the jump to the paid version but it was a well put together
extension and solved a problem I think many users have.

------
rusabd
Eventually, somebody will write bots to deal with this robotic bureaucracy and
it will be matter of how much licenses and CPU power you have to negotiate a
better deal. Essentially, it will be like rich people nowadays solve issues
between themselves using lawers.

------
js4ever
This story explain perfectly why I will never create anything relying on
Google tech or services again... Too many horrors story... And I have 2
projects killed by their dumb AI and without any possibility to talk to a
human Google is Skynet!

------
carapace
I'm keeping an eye on cookiengineer's "Stealth" proxy (
[https://github.com/cookiengineer/stealth](https://github.com/cookiengineer/stealth)
). It reminds me of the old (and still kickin') Proxomitron (
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxomitron](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxomitron)
)

If you MITM your own browser you can do whatever you want without an extension
(that's almost a hostage to browser makers.)

------
trashburger
Another victim of the Chrome Extension AI. Seems like the PR move of last week
was nothing beyond that, a PR move. I expect them to backpedal again like they
did with Pushbullet, but it's too late now.

~~~
molszanski
But thousands other will perish

------
shripadk
<rant>

I feel Google, Facebook and Twitter need to take a big step back and stop
antagonizing paying users: be it developers or advertisers. A majority of the
issues stem from horribly strict enforcement of policies. What these sites
expect from us mere mortals is to do a tightrope walk every time we create and
launch something. And some of these policies are actually ridiculous. I
understand the fallout of Cambridge Analytica has caused all these sites to
give more importance to policy enforcement but the solution to that problem
does not lie in automating it through use of technology alone. Business and
people's livelihood depend on these policy enforcement. God forbid your
business Ad account is shutdown for good because you used a word that causes
some stupid algorithm somewhere trigger an automatic ban.

It has happened to me. And worst part is you have no recourse. I have spoken
directly with Google Execs who were assigned to a client of mine for managing
a big ad account. Even they were clueless as to why the system suspended the
account. After a lot of digging around I realized that it was because I had
used the same credit card in two different accounts. I mean really? Come on! I
am lucky I had a Google Exec who was in contact with me because the client was
high value. What would small businesses be going through if the same thing
happened to them? I shudder to think.

All these sites need to relax with their enforcement of policies. Deploy
humans for this. We already have a lot of unemployment due to this pandemic
and this would be a great time to payback some of those profits by employing
more support staff. AI is good but it is not good enough yet to have such
levels of control.

</rant>

~~~
sensible123
Humans require salaries and Google is a giant machine for turning
attention/intent into money. Adding humans into the loop just creates friction
for the money printing part. And as you noted, they care when the person
spending money is rich enough. It's everyone else that loses with their
system.

I've been reading these stories for as long as I can remember knowing about
HN. People don't seem to quite learn that Google is a machine for printing
money and unless you're paying them they don't care.

------
Kaze404
I don't understand how we've normalized Googles behavior to the point where
this doesn't even shock me anymore. When I used Google Play Music a couple
years ago there was a feature that was broken for YEARS according to the bug
reports I could find, and in a classic Google move they shut the service down
before ever fixing it.

That might sound like a non sequitur but it's ridiculous to me how little
Google cares about anyone (users or the people who make content for their
platforms) yet we still use their products. These days I try to avoid them
wherever possible, not only for a small satisfaction of boycotting the
company, but also because if I grow to like one of their products it will just
shut down eventually.

What can we do about this?

~~~
kodablah
> What can we do about this?

There is a much harsher solution that I'm not even sure I advocate yet:
stigmatize employment there.

At-will employment somewhere when we can easily go elsewhere means that, while
we don't necessarily condone all that our company does, we in general
support/accept the company and its approach. Therefore, absent hardships, we
must assume Google employees generally support Google actions as a whole (even
if not this one). If others disapprove of Google's actions as a whole, they
are allowed to disapprove of those that work there.

In my opinion, the best you can do is disapprove of working there (including
passing opinionated judgment, albeit politely, on those that do work there).
Maybe you take such character judgments in your personal or hiring decisions.
Having said that, I don't agree with it as I generally support Google's
actions/presence as a whole, but the further their average lowers, the more
myself and others won't.

~~~
on_and_off
Some of the kindest people I know work at Google.

The truth is that it is become an enormous company and somebody working e.g.
on the internals of Compose code has no power over how Chrome handles
extensions.

I despise Google more and more as a company but that's not going to affect
them.

In the areas where Google has some real alternatives, switch to these.

------
LatteLazy
Why are google unable to offer ongoing services? Anything that requires
management is always a disaster for them (DCMA notices on YouTube, hell any
part of YouTube for creators, Nest, now this). I’ve worked at small trading
companies where if you’re not directly involved in the act of trading, you’re
just a cost centre to be minimised. Is it that?

------
mikulabc
Someone should collect all those HN posts and send them on LinkedIn to all
google employees as a PM, there must be someone important that will review
this or forward it directly to a department?
[https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/people/?facetCurrent...](https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/people/?facetCurrentCompany=%5B%221441%22%2C%22791962%22%2C%2216140%22%2C%2210440912%22%5D)

------
duncan_bayne
I remember when the Free Software movement really started to make inroads into
the corporate world, which in my circles was the late 90s / early 2000s.

It was like a revelation.

No longer were we tied to inflexible, command-and-conquer style platforms. We
could fix bugs ourselves, instead of waiting for years for vendors to _maybe_
fix the bugs we diligently reported.

We could distribute our own libraries and packages in minutes, with licenses
of our own choice. There was no corporate gatekeeper standing in the way. (But
what of security, you ask? Look at Lenovo and Superfish ... that was a MITM
attack _produced_ by the supposed gatekeepers).

Now it seems things have come full circle, and a younger generation of
developers is discovering, once again, that writing software for closed,
proprietary systems is a mug's game.

Only now, those platforms seem even _more_ strongly entrenched, courtesy the
mobile duopoly and web monopoly.

------
znpy
I wonder if it would be possible to build a casa against Google and start a
legal litigation on this matters.

------
m00dy
This is same the guy who owns the leftpad package on npm :)

------
dade_
Digital needs a human touch. Google never understood this, and I would never
trust them with anything important. Too many nightmares with their robots.
Generally, I don’t care, dumped Google and Chrome, but the Nest thermostat
hurt.

------
dvfjsdhgfv
The worst part of the so called modern Google experience for me is that
somehow mediocrity seems to be accepted as good enough. Quality human work has
been replaced by software that is far from perfect. The worst part: others try
to emulate that, "because Google is doing that." But Google is a Behemoth that
can afford not caring. Moreover, since they know they can't be search leaders
forever, they really can't afford not diversifying and not experimenting with
all possible services, trying to see which one sticks and which could be
monetized. So I expect it's going to be much worse in the future.

------
bdcravens
> Imagine having the same conversation, and starting it over and over from
> scratch every a few weeks

Seems like after doing this 2 or 3 times, I'd be making plans for a pivot or
change to my business model.

------
saltking112
It makes me wonder when behaviors like this becomes an anti-trust issue.

------
tomaszs
I like that the author called automated answer system of Google Chrome
extensions what it is. And it is bullying indeed. It is yet another raport
about misbehaviour of this company torwards developers. Why in earth we should
accept corporation bullying developers when we set up policies in communities
for everyone to feel safe? There is no place for double standards. I hope the
author will support the free internet by providing services outside the closed
ecosystem of Google

------
sneak
This isn’t a Google issue. This is a platforms-that-can-enable-censorship
issue.

Google is just an instance of the class. All of the instances of the class are
subject to this problem. Fixing Google’s policies will not eliminate this
danger.

Censorship platforms that do not permit the user an escape hatch (iOS App
Store, I’m looking at you) are ultimately able to decide what we see, what we
read, what we are allowed to think. They can disappear entire bodies of work
without even a notification.

Do not use censorship platforms.

------
foobar_
This seems like a cool service. There are few bookmark managers implementing
full text search. Move to safari or firefox and notify the users ?

------
pictur
I had the same things 3 years ago. The stupidest user experience I have seen
is the process of publishing the google chrome extension.

------
WesolyKubeczek
Keeps me wondering, can we still install extensions outside their store? Or
did they plug the last escape hatch and fucked it all up?

~~~
Guzba
Chrome can load unpacked extensions by enabling Developer mode in
about://extensions. Google will definitely get up in your business if you try
to distribute an extension on your website this way though.

~~~
sb8244
Can you go more into what they do if you try to bypass their distribution
mechanism? Is there any existing posts sharing experience? I'm curious as this
has always been my backup plan if Google takes this action against my
extensions.

~~~
yunyu
It's fine on MacOS (albeit a bit clunky), and sideloaded upgrades end up
creating two copies of the extension so you'll have to ship your own
autoupdater. On Windows, it's a no-go as Chrome will display a scary warning
every time you start the browser:
[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/23055651/disable-
develop...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/23055651/disable-developer-
mode-extensions-pop-up-in-chrome)

~~~
sb8244
Yikes. I use macos but definitely ship up windows. Appreciate you sharing
this.

------
fouc
There is a trend here, Safari 12 killed off extensions. Now Chrome is killing
off extensions. And possibly Firefox too?

~~~
sethish
Unlike Safari and Chrome, Firefox doesn't have a financial incentive to
prevent ad-blockers. In fact, they did extra work to their Firefox Preview
(mobile) app to integrate an ad blocking plugin as early as possible.

------
spicyramen
I guess the Product Manager(s) from Chrome extensions at this should reply
with clarity of how they are dealing with this.

------
retpirato
It wouldn't be the first time developers where "trolled" with take down
notices. The same thing just happened to pushbullet. Fortunately they were
given notice & resolved it & will stay on the store. At least for the time
being anyway. We'll see if it happens again. Is this a really common problem?

------
ernsheong
I replied to the latest version update rejection email (referring to policies)
from the Chrome Web Store. They actually replied and my latest extension
revision went through. Point is, you can actually reply... there is a channel
(form) in the Web Store as well, but of course you can only hope to get a
reply.

------
sergiogjr
Now with MS Edge, wouldn't it be an option just to move to its store and flip
Google off? Just a thought.

------
vezycash
Developers evangelized Android and Chrome in their early days - created the
monsters. People making Chrome only sites are feeding the monster.

Instead of Kozmos shutting down, the best revenge would making a firefox
extension and getting their users to switch.

~~~
StavrosK
Agreed, why are they shutting down instead of doing that?

~~~
livueta
I generally try to avoid bitching about Firefox design decisions in Chrome
threads, but possibly because of
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1409675](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1409675)
\- the original WebExtensions breaking change removed the ability for newtab-
style extensions to do a lot of things their XPI counterparts could, in
particular focusing on the address bar after opening a new tab. That bug went
WONTFIX with no suggestions for an alternative interface, basically telling
extension devs to come up with their own proposal for how to implement it if
they want that bit of the API back. I'm not familiar enough with the extension
in question to say whether any of those specific issues would have affected it
(and from the article it sounds like time was a bigger pressure) but
developing newtab-style extensions for Firefox is definitely harder than it
should be.

While I generally agree with the reasons behind moving away from XPI
extensions, it's been really disappointing to see Firefox not be as focused as
I'd hoped they'd be on restoring lost extension functionality. That's
especially important in the context of Google fuckery like the OP.

------
naderkhalil
If google takes down an extension but it has loyal followers, they can still
side load the extension, right?

------
brutal_chaos_
roadbeats, why not port to Firefox? That browser/company respect your privacy,
which seems to matter a lot to you. I don't have any personal experience,
though I haven't read any(maybe one, many years ago?) horrible situations like
yours at Moz://a

------
exabrial
If anybody at Google is wondering why they are about to face antitrust
action... Here you go.

------
irrational
Google excels at closing down projects. With all the recent stories I’ve been
reading about problems with the extensions team, I wouldn’t be surprised to
learn that Chrome is losing extensions. No extensions - no ad blockers - more
money for Google.

------
Awelton
Maybe someday everyone will realize that google isn't a company that provides
services to users, it's a data theft company. They don't really care about
bugs or frustrations because they aren't in the business of providing things
to you. You are not their customer.

The vast majority of people have forgotten that they aren't an email, webapp,
cloud storage, or online translation provider. They are an advertising
company. They use their products to steal your information. They aren't meant
to help the user, because the user is not their customer. I'm sure you will
get a real human employee if you are interested in buying ads from them.

Contrary to popular belief there are many companies that provide software
besides google. Use them if you want a provider that might care about your
problems. "It's not exactly the same as google ____" is not a valid excuse for
not giving it an honest try.

~~~
vosper
> they aren't an email, webapp, cloud storage, or online translation provider.

But they are: all of these are paid services Google offers. Presumably if you
pay you get a different level/kind of support?

~~~
soneil
The last numbers I saw (2016-ish) put Advertising at 86% of Google's revenue
(Or perhaps Alphabet's revenue? I'll admit that all that stuck in my head was
this 86.)

If those numbers are still anywhere near close, Google is an advertising
company with some interesting side hustles. Just because Harley Davidson sell
t-shirts, doesn't mean you'd describe them as anything other than a motorcycle
company.

~~~
29083011397778
A hilariously apt comparison - after looking up Harley's breakdown, it _looks_
like merch was ~10.5% of the revenue brought in by motorcycles (not
parts/maintenance) in 2015.

Granted, I'm not well-versed in looking at corporate financials, but the basic
breakdown shown here [1] isn't terribly complex

[1] [https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/harley-davidson-
rep...](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/harley-davidson-reports-
fourth-quarter-and-full-year-2015-results-300211052.html)

~~~
soneil
I didn't realise it was actually that much - it's just the only HD product
that anyone I personally know has ever bought, which was why it came to mind.

You did inspire me to go look up actual numbers for google though. Looking at
FY Q4 -
[https://abc.xyz/investor/static/pdf/2019Q4_alphabet_earnings...](https://abc.xyz/investor/static/pdf/2019Q4_alphabet_earnings_release.pdf)

If I'm reading the first table correctly, the number for "google advertising"
is the sum of all the lines above it, so that's the number I'll take. If we
compare that against the bottom line, we get 82.3% for Q4, or 83.2% for FY19.

So either it's improving (from the viewpoint of someone with a distaste of the
ad industry, at least), or I mis-remembered 2016's 86% - either way I can
update or correct my claim.

------
reustle
Check out privacy friendly alternatives to Google products on
[https://nomoregoogle.com/](https://nomoregoogle.com/)

------
nahtnam
Honestly, I'd be willing to pay $50 a year or something if that means that the
bots are less strict when reviewing my app (sort of like what Apple does)

------
doc_gunthrop
One important thing that's missing from the author's story is the _why_. What
is it that's triggering the robotic take-down notices?

~~~
hrktb
This is of course an interesting point that would satisfy curiosity.

But if we are to accept the author’s central claim that it was reviewed and
accepted by humans many times in these two years, the why isn’t really
important. IMO it would just make the story more interesting, not critically
different.

Now if you have reason to think that central claim is bullshit that’s another
question.

PS: also in this types of automated triggers, getting to know what triggered
the warnings is in itself a pretty hard task. I think a number of extensions
just get removed without ever knowing exactly why it happened.

------
devit
Especially since it seems that this extension is for paid users, you can tell
them to use Firefox instead (or use Chromium and sideload the extension).

------
caogecym
Google should really look into this. Improve your developer support
experience, that’s the right way to treat your ecosystem contributors.

------
greatgib
Like with appstores, Big Co are taking too much power over our free will.

Let's hope that antitrust agencies will finally investigate them on this
subject!

------
ezoe
Don't relies on somebody else's distribution platform as you sole way to
distribute your software. They totally deserve it.

------
molszanski
I think Google is shutting down chrome extensions

------
diebeforei485
I wonder if increasing the store publish fee from $5 to something closer to
$50 would enable better customer support.

------
sergiogjr
Well, now with MS Edge, wouldn't it be an option to move to its store and flip
Google off? Just a thought.

------
tomohawk
Another sad story of how a person's passion is quashed by big-corp monopoly.

When you're on the receiving end, the actions of Google are indistinguishable
from those of traditional bureaucracies except that instead of training people
to follow scripts, they have bots that take care of things automatically.

Unfortunately for us humans, Google's model of automating the disregard seems
sustainable and profitable.

------
cft
I switched to Firefox because of Google's draconian extension policy and don't
regret it

------
retpirato
You could always switch to firefox. Hopefully they don't have stupid
algorithms like that.

------
LockAndLol
Firefox isn't an option?

------
vzaliva
Is Firefox any better in this respect? I am seriously considering switching.

~~~
TheRealPomax
If it bothers you enough "to switch", that implies you've not been writing
extensions using universal web extension code, in which case.... what? Why
not? The only massive difference is the namespace ("broswer" vs. "chrome"),
which is trivially shimmed, and promises vs. callbacks, which is also easily
made universal.

But having said that, if you're considering switching you probably also want
to consider telling your paid customers how to install your extension
themselves, rather than sending them over to Google's extension "store".

------
mritchie712
Kozmos, can someone suggest an alternative / replacement?

------
hmert
Google never invest/pay attention enough on support.

------
themarkers
It’s really stop me to make a extension business.

------
annadane
Hi there Google employees that occasionally come here to comment!

THIS IS WHAT YOUR COMPANY DOES.

This among MANY other reasons is why people are pissed off with you.

When are you going to fix your toxic corporate culture?

------
softbankhater
I hope Google will go bankrupt

------
baryphonic
I have a theory about Google: They're using AI to handle moderation (among
other tasks) and it's sort of effective but fails in a lot of frustrating
cases, but they cannot admit that the lack of explainability is a serious flaw
in their model or that they'd actually need to have humans in the loop to
filter out the garbage experiences. Instead, they use humans but treat them
almost like bots (probably easier to build more training datasets that way)
and put up a hermetically sealed firewall between these moderators and the
public.

Google briefly disabled my Google account last year, and it spooked me. I had
created a "brand account" to use with YouTube, and for some reason the new
account was flagged for suspension within the first day. I was annoyed, but it
didn't bother me too much, and I submitted my appeal (aside: I always feel
wonderful having no clue what I'm appealing - I'm pretty sure even the Soviet
Union or Nazi Germany would have given me the dignity of knowing what I'd been
convicted of before the trial + execution/Gulag). Two days later, I woke up to
two emails from Google: the first indicating that my main Google account - the
one where I have my email, several domain names and YouTube TV - had been
suspended; the second indicating that the team reviewed my appeal and had
found I hadn't violated any policies and my account had been reinstated, but
that I'd need to login soon. I logged in posthaste and found that my brand
account was still disabled, but at least I could read and backup my email. (At
the time I also happened to be in salary negotiations with my then-client and
now employer. Really wonderful timing.)

I tried to submit another appeal on the brand account suspension, explaining
that I'd received a reinstatement email referencing the original ticket
number, and that all their team had done was erroneously disable and reenable
my main account. This time, I got a response saying that I already had an
appeal pending so I'd need to wait for it to be resolved. If I really cared
that much, I could have tried again to explain again that actually it was
their mistake, yada yada, but it wasn't worth it. I didn't want my account to
be suspended again with very little recourse other than trying to use my
network to get something done internally. Like with a corrupt cop, the prudent
strategy was to just walk away and avoid conversation.

I've since stopped using Chrome, and I find that I prefer DuckDuckGo to Google
(DDG feels like Google Search used to before $GOOG started blindly trusting
deep learning to solve everything). I have hardened my resolve against ever
touching an Android device, and I use an adblocker zealously. I haven't fully
moved my mail or DNS stuff away, but I am much more cautious. I didn't realize
in 2004 when I signed up for Gmail that I'd be entrusting my life's records to
an organization that makes the DMV look like an expert at efficiency and
customer support.

I'd hope that OP and the various other developers here could maybe band
together and maybe consult a lawyer. I have a feeling that given the legal
realities of discrimination law and the like, Google's policies and
enforcement procedures are bound to be in violation, especially considering
the law in its home state. Google's behavior is not merely evil in these
cases, but evil and incompetent.

------
wolfgke
Next time on HN:

Postmortem and lesson learned: Don't make yourself dependent on BIG_COMPANY
when building a product

~~~
Guzba
This comment is trite. No Android app, no iPhone app, no Google search
listing, no Amazon product page, no Stream/Epic store listing, no browser
extensions, no cloud servers. Can you rely on an internet provider or should
you lay your own fiber? What technology product are you going to make that
relies on nothing? HN deserves better comments imo.

~~~
matz1
Do not relay on one solution, diversify. Have a backup plan. Assume that
whatever it is you rely on has possibility to dissappear anytime for any
reason.

------
aboringusername
One thing I've noticed is that there are a lot of automated decision making
going on. In [1], the ICO offers guidance around what the GDPR says in regards
to this subject.

What I don't understand is why the GDPR doesn't enforce the following:

1: Clear and concise information about the action being taken, and clear
identification this was done using automation and did not involve any human
oversight.

2: A process the user can invoke to request human intervention, and a
confirmation email that a human will review the decision that was made within
30 days

3: Public statistics and transparency - any decision that was made that did
not involve a human must be published, with stats on % of decisions made,
number of cases flagged to human reviewers, and the success/failure rates (for
example, number of cases resulting in an overturned AI decision by a human).

This could also be beneficial in other sectors too, like automated credit
decisions and insurance policies, to publish statistics and data to afford
transparency and identify possible biases. It should also be a requirement in
law to preserve any code or algorithms should they need to be audited,
including an AI system to be preserved "in time", so that the 2017 version can
be audited in 2020 if an investigation is launched for example.

Right now, it's a complete free for all, too many edge cases and ways to game
the system if you can figure its loopholes, and no requirement in law to
provide a fair basis for users to appeal to a human without causing a PR
shitstorm.

This early adoption of AI is quite bad, and I suspect we'll see such
developments in the long term future as it matures.

[1]: [https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-
protectio...](https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-
protection/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/automated-
decision-making-and-profiling/what-does-the-gdpr-say-about-automated-decision-
making-and-profiling/)

~~~
5h
Literally the first sentence of the GDPR:

This Regulation lays down rules relating to the protection of _natural
persons_ with regard to the processing of personal data and rules relating to
the free movement of personal data.

No snark, this situation sucks, but after dealing with GDPR for a while it's
not well understood in tech societies

~~~
aboringusername
I think what's needed is case studies or case law. A ruling in a court that
becomes a "model" as to which the GDPR is applied.

People look at historic court cases which defines future societal behavior
(like acceptance of Gay marriage in some places).

It'll take time but get there eventually, and then we'll see changes based on
that.

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

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

------
iJohnDoe
Everyone should realize by now there are no bots at Google. There are only
Google engineers and outsourced workers behind every single “bot”,
figuratively and literally.

Every nightmare story about accounts being disabled by a bot, or Adsense
payouts being canceled, or apps taken out of the App Store, or extensions
being shutdown, all done by Google engineers or outsourced workers.

These Google people are doing it because they can and because they are jealous
of others’ success. They are also doing it because Google has lost their way
in the last few years and they are bored, among other reasons.

They also continually screw with web site search results to harm certain
sites, individuals, and companies for much the same reasons as mentioned
above.

Trust me when I tell you that there are no bots behind these final decisions.
It’s being done by Google engineers and their outsourced workers.

