
Google Bans Crypto-Currency Mining Extensions from Chrome Store - iconow
https://iconow.net/google-bans-crypto-currency-mining-extensions-from-chrome-store/
======
dvh
Mine got pulled off too. Few days ago my extension got pulled of without
explanation. I freaked out, didn't know why, because it was only RSS reader. I
had few ideas why it could be so I start fixing them. I mentioned in summary
that it is replacement of google reader, which they might not like, so I
removed that from description. It was also using google caja sanitizer, so I
replaced it with something else. Then there was preset of feeds so I removed
them all. I was about to resubmit it next day when they sent me an email that
it was removed by accident. They didn't tell why exactly.

Now that I see they are removing cryptocurrency miners it all makes sense. I
use SHA1 sum to make GUID of article if it is not present or if it is too
long, so that must have triggered their system to mark my RSS reader as crypto
miner.

~~~
tlrobinson
Damn, there goes my favorite RSSGUIDCoin miner.

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wyc
I strongly believe that extensions stealing resources and power from unwitting
users should be banned. However, that many legitimate extensions have also
been pulled reinforces that this is a lot of power in one place with no
observable external oversight, and it has strong resemblances to how companies
such as CloudFlare can ban whoever they want[1].

"Just don't use the platform" is becoming more expensive and less practical
for consumers every passing day. The same economies of scale that allow
individual Internet companies to effectively dominate markets also confer the
power to decide who has access and how, even if there's essentially only one
game in town. Anti-trust regulation may experience some interesting evolution
these next few years.

[1] [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/cloudflares-
ceo-...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/cloudflares-ceo-has-a-
plan-to-never-censor-hate-speech-again/)

~~~
EthanHeilman
What if they tell the users and require user action to begin mining?

It seems pretty rich for a company whose business model revolves around
building traps for user data and then using to that data to drive mostly
unwanted targeted advertising. Of the three choices:

1\. paid services, 2\. privacy violation + ads or 3\. service uses X% of my
CPU,

I'd choose 3 every time. The killer app of cryptocurrencies is monetizing PoW.
Someone is going to build the new doubleclick on that and displace google.

~~~
simias
I'll choose 4 every time: pay for services I find valuable with real money and
use an ad blocker otherwise.

It seems that many of these mining extensions are obvious scams anyway, an
other commenter in this thread gave this as an example:
[https://getcryptotab.com/en/](https://getcryptotab.com/en/)

It's an obvious pyramid scheme. Even if you wanted to mine Monero in your web
browser (not exactly the most efficient way I'd wager) why would you share the
benefits with some random third party instead of directly joining an open
pool?

If you want a laugh I suggest looking at their calculator that (with the
default values) tells you that you're going to win $40k if you manage to
enroll 10 million people underneath you. Good luck!

This particular extension is the first result when you search "bitcoin" in the
Chrome Web Store, with close to 20k ratings (all absolutely genuine I'm sure).

Websites that actually use mining as an alternative to ads don't use
extensions in my experience, they simply load a Javascript/wasm miner à la
coinhive.

~~~
prepend
“Even if you wanted to mine Monero in your web browser (not exactly the most
efficient way I'd wager) why would you share the benefits with some random
third party instead of directly joining an open pool?”

I’d be cool with having a site mine at 35% cpu for the few minutes while I use
their site in exchange for no ads and no tracking.

I think this is likely the only way that we can replace the Google/Facebook
ad-driven business model that runs the consumer Internet.

~~~
cronin101
Would it not be better for you (and the rest of the world) if you instead
willingly paid them the equivalent portion of your power bill, without
actively wasting the resources?

I really don't want the world to devolve into a future where armies of ignored
pre-teens with ipads are rapidly accelerating global warming, just so that
they can watch clickbait videos and share content in $social_network_vNext, on
sites sponsored by "monitising PoW".

~~~
prepend
Yes, it definitely would. I just think that it’s easier to mine as it
basically does that without having a lot of billing in between.

What I think the crypto that sticks will basically be the unit of exchange
where people are able to swap cpu, disk, memory without intermediaries. So
it’s not speculation, but a real market for unused resources.

In the olden days phone numbers (900-SEXX) could charge you through the phone
bill. It was convenient but really high transaction fees. If you could do this
with electricity without having a big transaction that would be cool.

Also environmentally friendly as places with high power costs (coal, oil)
could easily switch to lower cost resources (hydro, nuke) with renewables.

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endymi0n
As a larger publisher, we're getting crap like this every second day by now...
thanks to everyone bringing this to a stop, for me the cryptopocalypse can't
come soon enough:

\---

Good day to you!

Here is XXX, I am a business manager at Getcryptotab.com - is a bitcoin mining
affiliate platform. And we're looking for publishers who are ready to help us
to promote this project in exchange for high rates for you ;)

How it works - a user installs google chrome script and mines bitcoins,
invites new users by a referral link and multiplies his earnings.

And we're looking for ad placements of a fixed banner with a direct link to
our project.

We're ready to discuss the rates which will satisfy you and other different
options for our convenient and profitable cooperation.

So please, add me on Skype and let's discuss.

Looking forward to hearing back from you and wish you have a great weekend!

\-- Regards,

XXX Business Manager

~~~
lawlessone
>in exchange for high rates for you ;)

Anyone using winky face in a cold email like that should be slapped.

~~~
corobo
Expand that to any usage ever and I'm on board with this policy

~~~
endymi0n
I agree ;-)

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mc32
These people might be allowed to do what they do, if they were upfront about
what they are doing, but in most cases they plug-in is fronting as something
else and unbeknownst to most users, it's doing something else beside the
stated purpose.

As they say, this is why we can't have good things, because someone will be
unscrupulous and will take advantage of social norms.

I wonder if they will leave the door open for sites which "recoup" their
costs/pay the bills via mining, if they are upfront about it.

From the statement, seems they might not, given "The company will however
continue to permit extensions designed for blockchain-related purposes that do
not involving _mining_ in the web store. " and "Google’s decision reverses its
policy so far of allowing crypto-currency mining extensions in its Web Store
so long as that was the extension’s sole purpose and users were adequately
informed of the extension’s purpose."

So mining of any kind appears to be out. So much for an alternative to other
micropayments systems.

~~~
duskwuff
> These people might be allowed to do what they do, if they were upfront about
> what they are doing, but in most cases they plug-in is fronting as something
> else and unbeknownst to most users, it's doing something else beside the
> stated purpose.

And where extensions were really just mining cryptocurrency, they were often
clearly made to be deployed on systems the user wasn't authorized to use that
way. For example, from the description of one Monero miner extension:

> The extension is anonymous and untraceable [ghost emoji] and you can use it
> on any amount of computers [personal computer emoji] The more processing
> power, the more money you get. Install the extension at home/work/school and
> win Bitcoins [money bag emoji]"

\-- [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bitcoin-monero-
min...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bitcoin-monero-
miner/gakdkimihncjbegihabpiohfjpjabapb)

------
Ajedi32
Here's the official post from Google:
[https://blog.chromium.org/2018/04/protecting-users-from-
exte...](https://blog.chromium.org/2018/04/protecting-users-from-extension-
cryptojacking.html)

Note that extensions that secretly mined cryptocurrency in the background were
already banned from the Chrome store. The change here is that now Google's no
longer going to try to discriminate between extensions that secretly mine
cryptocurrency in the background from extensions that fully disclose that
behavior. (Presumably because it's easier to automate enforcement of the rules
this way.)

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trengrj
I see the fact we can now easily trade cpu power for currency to have many
more unexpected effects.

~~~
annabellish
>"easily"

One of the many reasons this behaviour is so scummy is that for popular
cryptocurrencies, one very quickly reaches the point where £1 of electricity
spend CPU mining produces much less than £1 of "currency". Economically, it
only makes sense if you're exploiting many unaware users.

------
bitL
Isn't mining in a browser a direct threat to their ad-driven business? If you
get rid of ads in exchange of some spare CPU/GPU cycles, their business model
would no longer be relevant; no wonder they would love to ban it. I'd however
gladly exchange it for ad-free websites.

~~~
bpicolo
Not at all. In-browser cryptomining is not even within an order of magnitude
as lucrative as ads (probably not even two orders of magnitude), and users
actively despise having the browser slow to a crawl because these are in the
background. It's far worse for users than standard advertising.

~~~
prepend
Even though it’s much less lucrative than ads, it can still disrupt google.
It’s work examining the equivalent of mining in CPM terms to compare.

But precisely why it’s less lucrative is why it’s a threat. Remember when
Napster came out and the argument was “they’ll never make as much money as the
record industry?”

For new entrants making an order of magnitude less is perfectly fine because
they are a new market. Why would they care if google loses $1B in ad revenue
if they make $100M. Especially since you don’t really need a market maker like
Google matching ad buyers to content makers, the $100M can go directly to
content creators running sites.

The payout for Adsense is super low for display. They don’t reveal the payout
ratio for clicks, but I expect it’s 10-30%.

So for comparison for $1B in current AdSense payout to content sites, content
creators only get $100-300M based on clicks.

If you replaced this with crypto miners then you only need 10-30% payout from
browser miners in order for content creators to break even. But ad in all the
readers who never click (like me, the ads are not relevant) this gets more
attractive.

If google is smart, they do recognize this as a threat.

~~~
simias
Given that every day more people browse the web on relatively weaker handheld
devices running on batteries I have a hard time believing that most people
will be fine with having websites drain their batteries and if it becomes
commonplace I expect that many people will block them.

And remember that mining is effectively a zero-sum game, the more people mine
the harder it becomes to mine. It effectively means that every new websites
who switches to mining for monetization makes it less valuable for all the
other websites already doing it since you're all sharing the same cake.

~~~
bitL
> is effectively a zero-sum game

That's only true for deflationary currencies. One can conjure up an ad-
replacement currency, let's call it impre$$ion, that would be inflationary and
perhaps linearly related to the time spent on the page regardless of computing
performance of a viewer (though some viewers might be more valuable than
others, e.g. those running iOS). Then there could be a separate market/stock-
exchange for impre$$ions, replacing ad income. I wouldn't be surprised if
something similar was in the works already.

~~~
bpicolo
There'd be no reason whatsoever for such an imaginary currency to have any
value.

------
donatj
This reads like it was written by someone with very little understanding of
what they are talking about, drawing connections where there are none, namely
but not limited to email malware and chrome extensions.

~~~
klez
I agree that the article is conflating a couple of things:

\- chrome extension that have the sole purpose of mining

\- chrome extension that covertly mine cryptocurrencies

\- malware that has nothing to do with chrome extensions and that mines
cryptocurrencies

I'm not sure why you're being downvoted here, but I guess it's because your
post comes off as a bit dismissing.

