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To give some broader context to the request: There is a pretty rich tradition of popular Chrome extensions being sold to third party companies who leverage exis
by notafraudster 5y ago
To give some broader context to the request: There is a pretty rich tradition of popular Chrome extensions being sold to third party companies who leverage existing browser permissions to add in advertising or other junk. This is not a technical problem, it's a social problem. You cannot credibly commit to not selling the extension. Options within the extension don't solve the problem because the new owner can ignore them and rely on the browser level permissions. The only way to mitigate this problem before it happens is to ask for limited permissions, ensuring the new owner would need to request higher permissions should they engage in the problematic behaviour.
- ksarw 5y agoAh I see, thanks for the additional context! I was aware of the toolbar extension scams that used to take place, but not of this particular pattern you are mentioning of hand-offs. Credibility is indeed a hard problem, with respect to both consumers and producers. I am reminded of the VLC story [0], and based on my experiences I think you can gain trust over time by your actions (hopefully this story is a valid one). Regarding least privilege, we have minimized the requested permissions to the best of our ability (please let me know if that's not the case). I'll be looking more into the bookmarklet idea too as another approach while trying to maintain the usability. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15372048 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15372048