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.
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.
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.