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What would they say about it? The most obvious things Google can do are to either limit the power of extensions and deprecate abusable APIs or to be much more

by geofft 5y ago

What would they say about it? The most obvious things Google can do are to either limit the power of extensions and deprecate abusable APIs or to be much more stringent about human review of extensions, both of which they're doing and are justifiably unpopular. In theory they could come up with some sort of "Any cooperation with third parties who pay you to add stuff to your extension gets your extension banned" rule, but it seems hard to write that rule in a way that distinguishes it from legitimate commercial activity.

jrochkind1 5y ago
That they are aware of the growing problem and here's what they plan to do about it. I don't know what that would be. > "Any cooperation with third parties who pay you to add stuff to your extension gets your extension banned" rule, but it seems hard to write that rule in a way that distinguishes it from legitimate commercial activity. Requiring disclosure would make sense and not be a problem for "legitimate commercial activity", but also not sure how it would be enforced. I'm certainly no expert.
Buttons840 5y ago
You could make it so the ability to access the network is a permission you have to grant to extensions. Got a shady extension that can't access the internet? Who cares. Same thing would work very well on Android. Got a shady app that can't access the internet? Who cares. Of course, Google trembles at the idea of being able to run apps without a constant connection to an advertising network.
- dave5104 5y ago
  Isn't the point here, though, that the shady people reach out to try and buy control of non-shady extensions? How would you know whether or not your previously non-shady extension is now shady?
  - Buttons840 5y ago
    If the extension cannot access the network to send data anywhere, what's the worse that could happen in that scenerio? Obviously some extensions have good reason to use the network, and there's no easy solution there. Some extensions change a color them on a page and that's it, I wish those could be denied internet access.
- TazeTSchnitzel 5y ago
  That would be a misleading permission if the extension has full DOM access because it could be easily circumvented.
Dylan16807 5y ago
> The most obvious things Google can do are to either limit the power of extensions and deprecate abusable APIs or to be much more stringent about human review of extensions, both of which they're doing and are justifiably unpopular. I don't know about that. They seem to have too much stringent non-human review, which is what I usually see complaints about.
- geofft 5y ago
  True. I guess I meant they could say "We default to not allowing extensions unless a human thinks the extension is a good idea," which will produce a similar outcome to the status quo - non-human review that has a high reject rate plus a frustrating human override process.

by geofft 5y ago

jrochkind1 5y ago

That they are aware of the growing problem and here's what they plan to do about it. I don't know what that would be. > "Any cooperation with third parties who pay you to add stuff to your extension gets your extension banned" rule, but it seems hard to write that rule in a way that distinguishes it from legitimate commercial activity. Requiring disclosure would make sense and not be a problem for "legitimate commercial activity", but also not sure how it would be enforced. I'm certainly no expert.

Buttons840 5y ago

You could make it so the ability to access the network is a permission you have to grant to extensions. Got a shady extension that can't access the internet? Who cares. Same thing would work very well on Android. Got a shady app that can't access the internet? Who cares. Of course, Google trembles at the idea of being able to run apps without a constant connection to an advertising network.

dave5104 5y ago
Isn't the point here, though, that the shady people reach out to try and buy control of non-shady extensions? How would you know whether or not your previously non-shady extension is now shady?
- Buttons840 5y ago
  If the extension cannot access the network to send data anywhere, what's the worse that could happen in that scenerio? Obviously some extensions have good reason to use the network, and there's no easy solution there. Some extensions change a color them on a page and that's it, I wish those could be denied internet access.
TazeTSchnitzel 5y ago
That would be a misleading permission if the extension has full DOM access because it could be easily circumvented.

Dylan16807 5y ago

> The most obvious things Google can do are to either limit the power of extensions and deprecate abusable APIs or to be much more stringent about human review of extensions, both of which they're doing and are justifiably unpopular. I don't know about that. They seem to have too much stringent non-human review, which is what I usually see complaints about.

geofft 5y ago
True. I guess I meant they could say "We default to not allowing extensions unless a human thinks the extension is a good idea," which will produce a similar outcome to the status quo - non-human review that has a high reject rate plus a frustrating human override process.