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What you are doing not only violated Facebook's trademark (good luck calling it fair use), but it's also against Facebook's ToS. They have actively gone after e

What you are doing not only violated Facebook's trademark (good luck calling it fair use), but it's also against Facebook's ToS. They have actively gone after extension authors who alter the Facebook experience and even deactivated their accounts. Rightly or wrongly, when you sign up to a service you are bound by the conditions they set out. In this case, making an extension to block advertising is probably not going to end well for you.

piyush_soni 10y ago
But then, aren't Adblock Plus/uBlock Origin violating the ToS by altering the 'Facebook experience' as well? They're still there on the Web store.
- bjz_ 10y ago
  They don't have 'Facebook' in the name. Probably much easier for them to go after trademark infringement.
  - piyush_soni 10y ago
    Yes, that's what I meant by my comment that hiding ads is probably ok for them, it's only the name that they're concerned about.
Algent 10y ago
I can see the obvious trademark issue since he used the facebook name. But I don't get why you bring up the ToS. Those are irrelevant outside of FB's website. ToS =/= Law.
- pas 10y ago
  Facebook could close the accounts of people who use AdBlockers.
  - Sylos 10y ago
    Yeah, but they can't close the Google Web Store account of someone who develops an ad-blocker.
ptero 10y ago
Bound to / enforced by whom? FB ToS do not exist in a vacuum, which is why they always include "if a section is invalid others remain" or some such. Not sure about which jurisdiction the user / you are in, but in most areas signing up for a service does not obligate one to watch the ads (e.g., on TV one can turn away, turn off sound, blank screen, etc.). I very much doubt that FB wants to fight, in courts, the person's ability to block ads on his personally owned display (both for bad PR and for uncertain outcome), thus their preferred response seems to be technological (make it harder or disable account they dislike) rather than legal.
- deanclatworthy 10y ago
  They don't need to get legality involved. Their terms of service also give them the right to kick you off the service - as they please. If you don't follow them - you don't get to use the nice things. It's pretty simple - whether we agree or not :)
  - ptero 10y ago
    As a private company they can kick one off the service anyway, ToS (which they can easily modify on the fly) or not. I (probably mis-)read your post to mean there was a clear legal problem with trying to modify the view to suit user tastes ("user content stays, ads go"). Folks doing this are fighting an uphill battle against stronger opponents who have powerful weapons (e.g., disable access), but it is not a hopeless battle -- there are examples of successful and profitable products built for filtering out force-fed content.
  - kuschku 10y ago
    > Their terms of service also give them the right to kick you off the service - as they please. Actually, they don’t, as rulings in Germany have shown, Facebook does NOT have the right to close accounts "at will" or for ToS violations. Especially not if the relevant ToS paragraph does not conform to law. (Just like you can’t refuse to serve customers for their religion in the US, for example)
    - 10y ago
x1798DE 10y ago
> (good luck calling it fair use) Fair use is a defense against copyright infringement, it has nothing to do with trademark infringement. The relevant test here would probably be substantial likelihood of confusion. I don't personally find it confusing, but I'm probably not an average person. I think "Facebook('s) X" is the much more common formulation for branded apps, and it's very common to call something "Cleaner/Dark/Accessible <Brand>" to indicate that your extension is a skin of that site. I'd say it's a borderline case, to be charitable, and changing it to "Cleaner - for Facebook", while more confusing about what it does, it's almost certainly safe. But the point of the article seems to be that there is no feedback on how to resolve this from Google's side, so it's not like the author can go to court over this to adjudicate the dispute, you just get a chilling effect where Facebook et al can (ab)use to stymie people doing things they don't like.
- deanclatworthy 10y ago
  IANAL but.. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use_(U.S._trademark_law) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use_(U.S._trademark_law... I have personally been working at a company where we had a problem with this. We were providing reviews of companies' websites, and therefore had to use their name and trademark. It was tricky legal ground for us to do this and we were challenged a few times.
  - x1798DE 10y ago
    Fair enough, I did not realize there was a different concept called that in trademark law. I still don't understand why you think it's absurd that he would assert such a defense, though. The article you linked clearly states that nominative use is actually encouraged by US trademark law. It seems a no brainer that you'd be able to specify the platform that your product works with.
    - deanclatworthy 10y ago
      The main problem here is that the author has created a product, which is harmful to the company in question whilst using their trademark. Generally courts don't like that.
zenopopovici 10y ago
They told me I was infringing 4 years later... when there are numerous apps in the store doing the same. It's also a cleaner that works only of Facebook. Google reviewed it and approved it 4 years ago. The extension is free. There is no advertising. I don't make any profit. I was never told what to do or how to change it so that my users would still recognize it. Also changing its name in "Cleaner - For Facebook" was suggested (and accepted) for the Safari extension by the Safari Gallery Team. If I don't know what I'm doing wrong, I can't fix it. This is not about TM infringement, but the total lack of communication by Google. Thing is that they basically told me I can't do anything if the original complainant gives his go-ahead ... after 3 months of canned responses. (I'm the author of the post).
- user8341116 10y ago
  I got pulled over for speeding once, all I did was lean out the window and say, hey officer, what gives? Everyone else was going the same speed as me? He said yeah you're right, have a good one! Actually that didn't happen because that's not the way the world works.
  - chris_wot 10y ago
    How did the officer have the legal right to pull you over? Why, because you broke the law as it is codified. Google haven't codified anything, and actively allow apps to do what they selectively disallow on only certain apps. I'm surprised you can't see the difference!
    - DannyBee 10y ago
      I can't see the difference either because it makes no sense. First, they only need probable cause to pull you over, you don't actually have to have broken the law. So the analogy is pretty broken, because the police already can do the thing you don't want google doing :). It's also civil vs criminal, so ... Second, the law is codified, why do you think it was taken down? Google received a trademark complaint. A complaint someone broke the law. This is like going down to the police station and filing a complaint. As for "actively allow", that's silly. They aren't ignoring trademark complaints about the others, they just didn't get any. I'm sure if someone filed complaints, they'd take those down too.

piyush_soni 10y ago

But then, aren't Adblock Plus/uBlock Origin violating the ToS by altering the 'Facebook experience' as well? They're still there on the Web store.

bjz_ 10y ago
They don't have 'Facebook' in the name. Probably much easier for them to go after trademark infringement.
- piyush_soni 10y ago
  Yes, that's what I meant by my comment that hiding ads is probably ok for them, it's only the name that they're concerned about.

Algent 10y ago

I can see the obvious trademark issue since he used the facebook name. But I don't get why you bring up the ToS. Those are irrelevant outside of FB's website. ToS =/= Law.

pas 10y ago
Facebook could close the accounts of people who use AdBlockers.
- Sylos 10y ago
  Yeah, but they can't close the Google Web Store account of someone who develops an ad-blocker.

ptero 10y ago

Bound to / enforced by whom? FB ToS do not exist in a vacuum, which is why they always include "if a section is invalid others remain" or some such. Not sure about which jurisdiction the user / you are in, but in most areas signing up for a service does not obligate one to watch the ads (e.g., on TV one can turn away, turn off sound, blank screen, etc.). I very much doubt that FB wants to fight, in courts, the person's ability to block ads on his personally owned display (both for bad PR and for uncertain outcome), thus their preferred response seems to be technological (make it harder or disable account they dislike) rather than legal.

deanclatworthy 10y ago
They don't need to get legality involved. Their terms of service also give them the right to kick you off the service - as they please. If you don't follow them - you don't get to use the nice things. It's pretty simple - whether we agree or not :)
- ptero 10y ago
  As a private company they can kick one off the service anyway, ToS (which they can easily modify on the fly) or not. I (probably mis-)read your post to mean there was a clear legal problem with trying to modify the view to suit user tastes ("user content stays, ads go"). Folks doing this are fighting an uphill battle against stronger opponents who have powerful weapons (e.g., disable access), but it is not a hopeless battle -- there are examples of successful and profitable products built for filtering out force-fed content.
- kuschku 10y ago
  > Their terms of service also give them the right to kick you off the service - as they please. Actually, they don’t, as rulings in Germany have shown, Facebook does NOT have the right to close accounts "at will" or for ToS violations. Especially not if the relevant ToS paragraph does not conform to law. (Just like you can’t refuse to serve customers for their religion in the US, for example)
  - 10y ago

x1798DE 10y ago

> (good luck calling it fair use) Fair use is a defense against copyright infringement, it has nothing to do with trademark infringement. The relevant test here would probably be substantial likelihood of confusion. I don't personally find it confusing, but I'm probably not an average person. I think "Facebook('s) X" is the much more common formulation for branded apps, and it's very common to call something "Cleaner/Dark/Accessible <Brand>" to indicate that your extension is a skin of that site. I'd say it's a borderline case, to be charitable, and changing it to "Cleaner - for Facebook", while more confusing about what it does, it's almost certainly safe. But the point of the article seems to be that there is no feedback on how to resolve this from Google's side, so it's not like the author can go to court over this to adjudicate the dispute, you just get a chilling effect where Facebook et al can (ab)use to stymie people doing things they don't like.

deanclatworthy 10y ago
IANAL but.. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use_(U.S._trademark_law) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use_(U.S._trademark_law... I have personally been working at a company where we had a problem with this. We were providing reviews of companies' websites, and therefore had to use their name and trademark. It was tricky legal ground for us to do this and we were challenged a few times.
- x1798DE 10y ago
  Fair enough, I did not realize there was a different concept called that in trademark law. I still don't understand why you think it's absurd that he would assert such a defense, though. The article you linked clearly states that nominative use is actually encouraged by US trademark law. It seems a no brainer that you'd be able to specify the platform that your product works with.
  - deanclatworthy 10y ago
    The main problem here is that the author has created a product, which is harmful to the company in question whilst using their trademark. Generally courts don't like that.

zenopopovici 10y ago

They told me I was infringing 4 years later... when there are numerous apps in the store doing the same. It's also a cleaner that works only of Facebook. Google reviewed it and approved it 4 years ago. The extension is free. There is no advertising. I don't make any profit. I was never told what to do or how to change it so that my users would still recognize it. Also changing its name in "Cleaner - For Facebook" was suggested (and accepted) for the Safari extension by the Safari Gallery Team. If I don't know what I'm doing wrong, I can't fix it. This is not about TM infringement, but the total lack of communication by Google. Thing is that they basically told me I can't do anything if the original complainant gives his go-ahead ... after 3 months of canned responses. (I'm the author of the post).

user8341116 10y ago
I got pulled over for speeding once, all I did was lean out the window and say, hey officer, what gives? Everyone else was going the same speed as me? He said yeah you're right, have a good one! Actually that didn't happen because that's not the way the world works.
- chris_wot 10y ago
  How did the officer have the legal right to pull you over? Why, because you broke the law as it is codified. Google haven't codified anything, and actively allow apps to do what they selectively disallow on only certain apps. I'm surprised you can't see the difference!
  - DannyBee 10y ago
    I can't see the difference either because it makes no sense. First, they only need probable cause to pull you over, you don't actually have to have broken the law. So the analogy is pretty broken, because the police already can do the thing you don't want google doing :). It's also civil vs criminal, so ... Second, the law is codified, why do you think it was taken down? Google received a trademark complaint. A complaint someone broke the law. This is like going down to the police station and filing a complaint. As for "actively allow", that's silly. They aren't ignoring trademark complaints about the others, they just didn't get any. I'm sure if someone filed complaints, they'd take those down too.