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Why the extension isn't being updated (often) any more

Sander Ronde edited this page Nov 19, 2022 · 2 revisions

The extension hasn't been updated for a while and probably won't be updated often any more other than critical bug fixes. See below for the full explanation or go to this section for a TLDR.

The rules and the first ban

Google's chrome web store has a bunch of rules that are enforced. Some examples are scamming people, storing their browser data without permission etc. These rules all make sense and anyone would support them. However, the web store has become too big for Google to have every single extension be reviewed by a human every time it's updated. At some point they switched this process to a random control process, where they'd sometimes flag an extension for review during an update. This led to some extensions being banned for things that others were not banned for. Because of this I had one of my extensions banned (a piratebay ban circumventer, of which there are a bunch still up).

The problem and the second ban

They also greatly scaled down on actual humans (or there were barely any to begin with). Sending an email asking for clarification on a ban would not actually get you the reason for the ban, and would 99% of the time just get you a reference to their rules. There is also a lot of inconsistency, where one Google employee told me what I was doing was okay and not against the rules and another proceeded to ban another one of my extensions for that very reason. Because of that I managed to get two strikes against my account.

The third ban

A long while ago, the Custom Right-Click Menu extension itself was banned. Along with it, my Google developer account was banned and my regular Google account was to be banned as well if I didn't fix within a few months. Eventually it got reinstated along with my accounts, but it took a few months of sending emails to get to that point, mostly because I was not told what the actual problem was.

The most recent ban

A shorter while ago, the Custom Right-Click Menu extension was rejected (see #44). Since I have two strikes already, Google's AI that randomly flags extensions for reviews is heavily biased towards me. Any update I make to any extension is flagged for review. In the ban email, no explanation for the ban was given at all. I sent a whole bunch of emails but got no meaningful response, just pre-written responses pointing me to their rules. This is an issue even huge extensions like ublock origin have dealt with (see here, here and here). Eventually I managed to find some secret forum where the only community manager for the chrome web store (and as such the only source of human contact with it) responds to bans and their reasons. I asked for clarification on my ban and found out the actual reason for the ban. Somehow these rules had only now been violated even though the rules as well as the code in the extension had been there for years. In order to comply I had to strip down the extension by a lot, taking away one of its most unique features, namely being able to access browser APIs from just a simple userscript.

The current status

This has left me at the point where any update I make to any extension is immediately flagged for review. There's then a huge chance that is violates some rule because there is no consistency among the review team, after which I may get some explanation after a few months. During this time, there's a big chance that my developer account, as well as my regular Google account is permanently banned. This is simply not a risk I'm willing to take unless something is extremely broken.

Because of this, I will only be performing critical fixes for the extension, joining in any small bug fixes with those big bug fix updates if there are any.