How Google obliterated my 4 year old Chrome extension featuring 24k+ users
by.graffino.com
by.graffino.com
A number of us have been trying to get a response regarding Google Apps accounts with Play Music, and we're paying customers. There's no response to the forum https://productforums.google.com/forum/m/?utm_medium=email&u... nor when I put it on Twitter and when a load of us tried direct feedback via the app, that still hasn't got any response.
Clearly their model needs to rely on limited user support and that's okay, provided there's a good service with some human presence. But it's getting to be a problem...
Hey, fifty years.
(So, are we getting Baby Googles and Facebooks in another ten years, or are those times behind us?)
the big difference is that for the most part, google users/developers/... are not really customers.
The worst is that google doesn't even have good tools that allow its community of users to help each others, aside from a mediocre Q&A forum.
I've also had issues with Adsense and have access to their support, and have had the same experience there. Helpful, responsive, and followed up long after the problem was resolved to make sure we didn't have any more problems.
Overall, I went in thinking their support would suck and ended up impressed.
From "Do no evil" to "???"
Feel the power of the dark side..... :-)
No, though with many free Google services, each user is a low-volume supplier in a crowded field of similar low-volume suppliers.
Google Express seems to have very good and responsive customer service, so to the extent that this is a real problem at Google, its not everywhere at Google.
> Google estimates that they would need to hire over 20,000 customer service people to deal with 1 query every three years from each customer. So it has decided - as far as possible - to employ zero people and rely on algorithms.
https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2013/02/googles-customer-contempt-c...
This person just won the unfortunate lottery that in a large enough sample there has* to be at least one person who gets treated unfairly.
Plus, of course, they are butthurt over the fact that they don't understand how trademark works (I mean… honestly? How could they think that that rename would make it better?). It's not like they didn't get multiple levels of appeals by humans, they just didn't like the answer they got so felt more comfortable blaming automation.
right? :-)
Humans have a failure rate for repetitive tasks between 1 and 10% (depending on who you ask). So even (unrealistically) conservatively and including having two steps of appeal, you would need to assume a minimum false positive rate of at least one in 10K cases (you can even make that a million, if you want, by adding another layer) that get appealed.
Now, what do you estimate, how many chrome app store takedown notices, youtube copyright claims, android bugs… whatever, does Google get in any given week?
It is literally unavoidable that there will be a significant number of cases that fall through the cracks. And as long as it only takes one of those to post a blog post and get on HN, I don't see much value in increasing the cost for this any further, tbh (I just love how that article completely ignores any statistics when comparing this with the case of Apple btw. Not only is Safari only a tenth of the size, basic statistics should tell you that you won't be the unlucky bastard in both stores simultaneously).
The issue isn't algorithms or automation. The issue is, that we can't yet completely replace some jobs with them. And humans suck, especially at scale.
However, they should really consider hiring support staff for:
* Their paying customers
* The partners bringing value to their products, typically extension developers and Android app developers
As a software engineer at Google, I have handled a few bugs or issues that originated from customers calling our support lines.
And yet, the best place to get support, even for Cloud customers – as has happened before – seems to be this very website, because the Google support just doesn’t care.
http://www.businessinsider.com/google-cloud-won-skeptic-afte...
Common sense, apparently, can't even be bought with Google/Alphabet money.
And this is why Google's ecosystems suck. They don't put in the work. Podcasts say "going live this week" then never go live. They've completely fucked up their books store by making authors not be able to control discounts, which, combined with Amazon's price match, means that authors have to choose between randomly having their revenue fully cut or skipping the Google book marketplace altogether. Spoiler alert: they skip the Google marketplace.
Heaven help me if my gmail address gets marked as a spammer account. I'll basically be completely fucked, but I don't trust anyone else as much with security.
the compromise position that they could do, but apparently haven't done, is to sell paid support packages for app developers that need/want more engaged support from google.
Hire one people to respond to devs of these pretty popular extensions (so let's say above 10 000 installs). Make the number of emails the guy/gal has in the queue public, so devs can know how long they have to wait on average.
in any case its pretty clear how the Android app ecosystem actually works: no support for developers. The advantage you get from that is a more open app ecosystem with lower barriers to entry and lower fees from Google compared to their competitor Apple.
Yeah, the Apple 100USD fee is just as laughable, and their review process just as mystical, no questions about that.
And with Android you at least have the AOSP, and with Chrome there's Chromium, and you can always just distribute Chrome extensions yourself.
[0] : https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/yahoomailhide...
> We cannot prevent from being "Flagged" and unable to reveal the reason of flagging.
What do you expect from them? They openly said they can not divulge more information about this. There is no "response on what would be the acceptable resolution" that is more proper, unless you assume they are straight out lying.
Anyways, if the vision aspired by Thiel happens, those "libertarian" capitalists will be killed by revolts/uprisings in an instant. A world without tax nor regulation nor basic support for social equality never works. Just as explained in Capitalism in the 21st Century, if inequality is not addressed, there will be revolts and chaos. Extreme injustice can't dominate forever.
2. Google is under no legal obligations to enforce a contract between Facebook and the Facebook user
3. The TOS applies to the user of facebook, not the developer of DOM manipulation Plugin
4. To the extent the developer agree to said TOS, it is largely open to interpretation if TOS have any legal authority at all beyond giving the ablity of platform operators to ban users for violating them. I.e Facebook's recourse would be to identify people using the plugin and then ban them from the site. of-course Facebook has no desire to actually ban anyone for using a public so they use legally dubious trademark claims.
> You agree that you will not engage in any activity with the Web Store, including the development or publication of Products ... that knowingly violates a third party’s terms of service,
sounds like publishing extensions which enable users to violate the Facebook TOS are not ok.
To be clear, #Sarcasm :)
Google's genius, isn't so much what they do. It's also that they've lowered the bar when it comes to expectations. They understand that designing and building products is relatively easy. The unknowns are in time knowable.
On the other hand , reality-based humans drive Google crazy. They are, evidently, to be avoided at all costs.
In that context, it's "interesting" how it's working out for Google+, eh. Surprised?
In a company that has hundreds of products, is that really so hard to believe? Mega successes... mega failures. Still massively successful?
Look at Apple. They were at the top with the iPod. Then the iPhone. Then the iPad. Massively successful. Yet they still release turd products like one button mouse, Apple TV and the G4 Cube.
Or Microsoft with their massively successful products and massively unsuccessful turds.
It's not like other companies don't have horrible customer support... Nope... just Google. /rolls eyes
Although I have some serious issues with Apple (e.g. iPhone 6 plus), Apple hasn't released a one button mouse in a long time. They all have two buttons, just check the preferences.
Frankly, Apple TV is actually a pretty good product since my technophobe Mom can use it for its intended purpose. I still don't like the whole remote policy, but that's a developer thing and frankly Apple really isn't the most friendly company to developers either.
Didn't realize that text carried that much weight...
Didn't realize that a comment about a Google Extension was so earth shattering that it's not worth arguing over...
I'd hate to see you in a conversation about anything of real substance.
That's an interesting use of "genius". For me that just sounds like vulgar subversion. People at Google (etc.) also didn't influence my outlook on what what is decent, merely my outlook on them.
This is a prime example of why I don't use my Gmail anymore and why I pay for email. I've read plenty of horror stories of how people lost their Gmail accounts for all kinds of reasons. Most of the losses were completely unrelated to Gmail but related to perceived 'abuse' of Google's other services like Youtube (if your YT account gets shut down for 'copyright abuse', your Gmail will be gone as well). Some people lost Gmail accounts over Google Play store apps they submitted. Basically, if they close your account, your Gmail is linked to it and it's gone too. That scared the heck out of me because I had my whole life in there.
And there's just no way to contact Google's support... unless you know someone at Google.
Author should feel lucky they didn't close his account over this.
I send quite a lot of email for work and other things and I have what I think is a higher-than-average number of email addresses to manage.
One adjustment I made - I now archive older emails to avoid extra storage costs, which in turn means that searching for older emails is slightly more hassle.
Fastmail's web interface and mobile app are not quite as slick (as gmail) but this isn't a big deal for me personally.
I have also taken the time to run my own calendar and contact services.
For mail, I run Postfix and Dovecot over SSL and access email from my iPhone or web browser using Squirrelmail.
For contacts and calendar I use Baikal.
Yikes.
Isn't this exactly the problem with running your own email setup? And have you not found that keeping on the white side of mail server lists is a constant and moving target?
May I ask, do you send a lot of mail and have multiple accounts? (I do, so this overhead would be impossible for me to manage personally)
For example, I would absolutely love to pay a monthly fee to Twitter (say, 3-5€) in exchange for an ad-free, unmodified, chronological timeline. And I would also consider paying something (say, 10€ a month) to Google in exchange for an ad-free search site that does not collect any data about me without my explicit consent.
As far as DuckDuckGo goes, I would really love to use them regularly. DDG is even the default search engine on my notebook, but I find myself going to Google in the second step about 90% of the time because DDG's results are too bad.
Also, DDG is still running on ads, so it's more of the same, albeit implemented more privacy-consciously.
Settings -> Account, under "Content" unmark "Show me the best Tweets first"
Apple is probably the most successful counter-example but even they are now going to have app store ads.
Essentially, it's a way for a site's users to bid for its ad spots. If you bid more than the advertisers, you don't have to see the ads.
It's quite a clever idea really, but I don't think it has much uptake from publishers.
It's too bad there wasn't some way to have it cross over networks too.
Also you could just use an add block
That's a (rather quickly) learned behavior called banner blindness. :) [1] People get used to the locations where ads are placed on web pages and also the kind of look that ads have (flashy, colorful, animation, tiny picture with some text, etc., as some examples) and don't even look at them (these have been confirmed by eye tracking studies a long time ago).
Exactly what 'bad things' are being prevented here?
The end result is exactly the same for the end user, its simply a question of who is getting paid how much and how often for that information.
Selling your age, gender, location, preferences, etc to anyone who books an ad? That’s bad.
You can read more about how online ads work here: https://privacy.google.com/how-ads-work.html
That’s more than enough.
I don't follow your line of reasoning here.
If any company gives any information about me to a third party, that's already wrong.
And while advertisers don't get the data directly, they get it indirectly. They get the user specification (age, gender, rough location) they bid on, and the IP, and several advertisers even used that to track you between different websites their AdWords ads were shown on.
I'd ask how you think they are giving data to foreign governments, but I have a feeling you'll try to redefine "mandatory court subpoenas for individuals" as the same.
Basically, the income they'd gain from offering this would pale in comparison of the reputation they'd lose (and following that, users) from admitting what they do is bad for you.
Second problem is that there is potentially more money in you than this proposed relatively low amount because you are probably spending a lot more in a month and it is big attraction to become a middleman in every transaction you make.
The monthly fee for this service would be about $80.
In reality, most customer cases can be resolved quickly by searching for documentation and pointing them to it and/or explaining things better (and improving the support documentation along side when necessary).
I would assume that at least 30 customers can be served per eight hour working day. That's spending more than 15 minutes per customer and is usually adequate (on average) even for phone support! With my extrapolation here, which is again just an example (real scenarios would be different), the basic cost incurred by the service provider for the salary alone comes to about $7 per user per month. Add for overheads and it would still be fine to charge $10 or $12 per month. If service tiers are used, then there could be multiple slabs, mechanisms for support and turnaround times - all these would bring down the actual cost further.
And the more you pay the more your message is higlighted or promote to these people.
What did you expect?
Any service, not just Google, will shut down apps and extensions for similar reasons. This has nothing to do with
> I just don’t think it is worth it to put any amount of effort to build something on a platform that turned out to be so unreliable.
But what the author refers to is completely another issue: the complete lack of support from Google. The extension author complied with the request. Tried to contact several times an only got canned responses. I guess Google doesn't care much about people that develop for their platform. At least that's what I got from the blog post. Therefore, author's conclusion about developing for that platform seens right.
I'm generally a pro IP guy but this seems extremely draconian.
I also do agree that FB here is somehow taking advantage of said laws to send to /dev/null the extension that renders one of their revenue streams ineffective.
I'm no expert in US trademark laws by any means, maybe they're entitled to leverage it for these kind of cases.
This seems to happen to every company reaching a certain size and in need of some belt tightening (either pressured via investors or internally realized). Microsoft, for instance, has consistently flushed new frameworks away over the last decade, driving tons of Microsoft-centric developers away from the idea of building on any novel platforms and frameworks they put out. Google seems to be going down the same route by torpedoing APIs, torpedoing entire services, killing Chrome apps next year, hampering support requests, etc.
If there's good harmony between the broader dev community and a given platform, it stays. There's no point in supporting a framework that doesn't catch on fast enough (why invest the time?) and also no point in supporting outliers who have a hard time implementing a service unless -- as the author hopes -- it becomes a press headache for them.
...since I upvoted the link, I suppose I'm on the author's side here.
Let's pretend Google actually had great developer support (remember: we're pretending here) which was staffed to whatever degree it 'should' be. He still would have likely gotten nothing but automated/canned replies because this particular 'issue' has been brought up time and time again by inexperienced and/or bozo developers (i.e. 'whhaaa... you mean I can't make a living off of someone else's brand?'. No company is going to spend much/any time fielding these types of support requests, even if it's paid support) It would have been a stronger argument if he had an issue that a real person on the other end would have been able to help him with.
I agree that the developer should have guessed that by himself, but the real issue here I believe is the lack of any useful response, the automatic takedown of the extension and no way to get any response after "expending" the apparent "two tries" that you get from Google when something like this happens.
So you do not have to pretend here: If Google had developer support that would be as good as Apple's (which I believe is a very low bar considering all the anger Apple is getting about how they treat developers), the extension would still be in the Chrome App Store and doing just fine.
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.
But I don't get why you bring up the ToS. Those are irrelevant outside of FB's website. ToS =/= Law.
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.
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.
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)
If you go into a restaurant and put your finger in a fellow customer's food, that is not against the law, but the manager will throw you out. It's the same with Facebook's ToS, they can decide who and who cannot use their service. I have read a lot about how Germany has dealt with privacy within the Facebook platform, but have not seen anything about reinstating users who have breached ToS?
There were a few cases regarding the realname policy regarding that, and it’s still in the courts, but it looks like Facebook can’t exclude users for that.
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.
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.
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.
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).
Actually that didn't happen because that's not the way the world works.
I'm surprised you can't see the difference!
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.
Laches is only a defense if facebook knows and it took 4 years. Even then, caselaw suggests 4 years is the minimum you'd ever get to complain about.
"Google reviewed it and approved it 4 years ago."
Not sure of the relevance to the first sentence. It's not the same folks.
"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. "
I'm honestly not sure what you expect here. Google doesn't know what's going to make the other guy stop complaining, and if the other guys complains, they have liability.
I expect this is why they directed you to contact the complainant. Google really can't say or do anything here without risking legal liability, unless the other guy basically says "yeah, we don't care anymore". So they aren't. You can't expect Google to offer you legal advice on how to fix this, that's just silly.
Note that contrary to whatever you think - you have recourse here, even if facebook ignores you (i assume you called the complaining place on the phone instead of just emailing folks)
You could go get a declaratory judgement that your app is not trademark infringing. If you did this, and google ignored that, i think you'd have a reasonable argument here.
Isn't it something like?
Facebook cries to Google. Google notifies Developer. Developer contests trademark infrigement. Google notifies Facebook of contestation.
Google at this point provided the venue for dispute (so complied with the safe-harbor "doctrine"), now Facebook can escalate to proper courts.
If you're a developer there needs to be an explanation and a mediation if a conflict occurs. This is how business is handled everywhere. I am a developer that helps promote their business.
There is no where to call no where to write and to get a human on the other side. There is no appeal.
Why does Google care if someone wrote software to block Facebook ads? Maybe they have a secret deal with Facebook to help cleanse the world from ad blockers?
Obviously Apple has no skin in the game (they don't rely on ad money) - Maybe that's why they allowed the ad blocker to remain on their store.
This is a case of competing companies collaborating with each other at the expense of the consumer because the outcome is mutually-beneficial for the companies. This is anti-capitalist behaviour.
If Facebook has a problem with ad blockers, they should take it up with the government instead of collaborating with competitors.
That brings back memories of the Google/Apple employee anti-poaching agreement http://www.cnet.com/news/apple-google-others-settle-anti-poa...
There is a clear distinction between claiming that something is made 'For Facebook' vs 'By Facebook".
A better thing could be a community-owned store for the chrome extensions (and a community-owner browser). Something like the Mozilla Add-ons site but for Chromium-only extensions.
Or being able to add you own stores in Chromium, would be even nice for companies who want to distribute private extensions.
(I'm the original author)
I can't release it in the form it is now. I'm really ashamed of the code I wrote a few years back :).
Frankly, it would have taken just one thing - remove references to Facebook. I know that's basically amounting to doing some linguistic gymnastics in order to express what your extension does, but you _did_ in fact use a trademark without their consent, and ostensibly in a way that reduces their revenue stream. This really isn't a Graffino v Google issue.
Expecting "due process" is also an unrealistic complaint in this scenario.
> I just want you to think twice before creating a revenue stream based on the Chrome Web Store.
Forget the Chrome Web Store. Think twice before creating a revenue stream based on any service that can pull out the rug at any moment. If you don't control your own destiny things like this can and will happen.
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 agree with your second point.
(I'm the author of the post).
This is not a great defense. We know from the trail you presented that someone from FB's legal/compliance team found your extension, not the others, likely due to its visibility and popularity. That doesn't mean the other extensions are in the clear. It just means they weren't on FB's radar.
> The extension is free. There is no advertising. I don't make any profit.
I'm sorry, but that's irrelevant. The complaint wasn't that you were profiting from the ™, just that you were using it.
> 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
I cannot disagree more. They told you what the problem was and the originating email explained that quite explicitly. You did not have permission to use the trademark Facebook (or FB). That's it. If you removed those protected trademarks, it would have been a different story.
I specifically said in the article that it's not the takedown I had a problem with. But the total lack of support in solving the issues. If I'm not made aware of the rules, I can't fix anything. They specifically said I had to get back to the original complainant to get my app reinstated. That email address is a black hole. So there's nothing I can do.
I didn't say any of that.
> If I'm not made aware of the rules, I can't fix anything.
I don't think Google or Apple could ever (or should ever) - in any meaningful way - advise you on copyright law. That would ultimately boil down to a civil issue between you and Facebook. Facebook, however, made it quite explicit what their issue was. By your article it seems you did not try to rectify the issues that Facebook brought. The notion that you exhausted all avenues to getting your extension re-activated is simply not true.
I may need to explicitly prevent the impression that my service is Facebook or part of it, and add a footnote about who is the owner of the Facebook trademark, but saying that an extension is "a cleaner for Facebook™" is explicitly allowed under trademark laws. Even without consent from Facebook, and even if Facebook explicitly forbids it.
Unless you're part of the team at google with the power to reinstate extensions, I don't know how you can possibly claim to know that.
Can I say that with authority? Of course not. I can't say the window wouldn't be broken had you not thrown a baseball at it, either. But I can tell you the window is broken because you threw a baseball at it.
Chastising the author for breaking it in the first place is neither here nor there.
The reasoning was provided in the included email screenshot. It's not a grand leap to suggest that not repeating the precise reasoning for the extension's removal would likely mitigate future action. The OP fundamentally resubmitted the app without addressing the complaint. How to fix a trademark transgression seems pretty straightforward, doesn't it?
I didn't get the clear reasons my extension was taken down. It is a grand leap to what needs to be changed in order for the app to be compliant and in the same time not confusing existing users.
The fact that Safari allows it is not some broad-sweeping legal pronouncement. Nor is it proof that they even truly evaluated it more than superficially. It's not even validation that the extension is compliant via Apple's terms. It just means your extension got back in.
Apple could get a takedown notice tomorrow and do the exact same thing. This is clearly a risk of using the Facebook trademark, even if you're doing it in a "fair use" way.
I'm not trying to be rude here, so please don't read it this way. But bluntly, invoking Facebook's name in your extension is kicking the hornet's nest. If Facebook doesn't like it, they will send takedown notices and Apple and Google will assuredly respond to those by suspending extensions. Your beef is still ultimately with Facebook, not Google.
It's a terrible idea because advertisers don't give a fuck about performance. I've ditched Chrome because it's just too slow with all the ads -- at least with Safari and Firefox I can run an ad blocker to cut down on some of the mountains of JavaScript trackers, overlays and animated banner ads that make the browser so effing slow. I know I'm not the only one in this boat.
Makes you wonder how many of my installed extensions have changed owners during my use.
I had a chrome extension with >15k users. One day I got an email saying I violated the facebook trademark (my extension blocked the read receipts in facebook messenger and had 'facebook' in the title).
I reached out to google and they said reach out to the person who filed the complaint (which was not facebook, it was some agency they pay). I reached out to them, called their phone number, sent them emails, and they were unreachable. I emailed google to say they are unreachable and they won't respond.
It is kind of annoying...
The communication side fo things is clearly bad on Google's side. Similar to the YouTube demonetized videos fiasco. Google needs more PR and Communication people.
From the point of platform owner this kind of indifference and arbitrariness is justified with low cost and it's not going to go away. They only need to keep the frequency of occurrences within acceptable limits.
How many times has Apple already done the same, both on the Mac and iPhone?
And before them both there was IBM.
When you develop for controlled platforms and walled gardens you're not creating a business for the long run. What you're doing is free market research for the owners of the garden.
Yes, there are exceptions (Intuit, Adobe, Autodesk). But they're exceptions, not the rule.
https://github.com/khaledhosny/mada/issues/11#issuecomment-2...
The author of Crimson Text, a very popular free web font, complains about it on his Github readme [1]:
"While you are looking at the new, improved version, Google Fonts continues to offer the clumsy-looking original and has not heeded the repeated pleas for an upgrade."
He is selling ads. And he gets lots of support.
Just to recap:
1) Receives a take down notice for trademark violation
2) Changes name from "Cleaner Facebook" TO "Cleaner — for Facebook" :)
3) Gets surprised as taken down again
Let me suggest a few names _without_ Facebook in the title:
- Social facelift
- Clean UI
- Fresh look for social media
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.
Most of programming btw is like that. Google throw an exception with a better error than "undefined is not an object". Maybe it's easy for me from the outside to pinpoint the problem, but it's usually about reading between the lines.
Their support is indeed poor, but you are not entitled anything and probably the lesson here is not to build anything serious on 3rd party platforms where you are unsure about licensing, legal questions. I've been burned once by SoundCloud legal team for using their public API.
This is probably not a good idea in general today anyway, with Google phasing it out for Windows/Linux/macOS.
But even if they do have a person handling incoming trademark complaints, that doesn't mean that they have someone handling appeals. They can face legal damages, if they don't handle trademark complaints. They can't face legal damages, if they pull through on one too many trademark complaint.
Changing it from "Cleaner Facebook" to "Cleaner - For Facebook" won't solve any copyright claims against it. I suspect it's mostly the "facebook" part.
All these people make ad-destroying apps and extensions and then act flabbergasted when big companies relying on ad-revenue don't like that and file complaints to get them taken down.
I am betting that FB will get it taken down again. Trademark Infringement was just the scapegoat for your original extension. The real reason it was taken down was because it was harming FB's business model for a growing portion of its userbase.
They seem to have done everything right here.
(I'm the author of the post).
Also, are you seriously telling me that making a different suggestion once, which still contains the trademark is spammy? Any reasonable customer service would have just responded that this still isn't alright either, maybe even suggested a few names, which would not infringe the trademark.