> And if that automated system can make a decision to flag the extension, it could also include in the email specifically what caused that flagging to happen
Unless it's a black box machine learning model that just says yes/no but can't tell you why
Unless it's a black box machine learning model that just says yes/no but can't tell you why
Telling people that they are going to be severely punished within days by a very powerful global entity, without telling them which specific rules they are in breach of or what they have to change is a dystopian nightmare.
Well, if the reason is the "https://*/*" permission or something like that, and it is flagged and reported automatically, and everyone learns not to use it, it's a win-win. Benign extensions will have smaller targets on their backs, and malicious extensions will become less malicious OR will have to jump through hoops to achieve what they're trying to achieve (and will become easier to detect).
It's a finite list of app permissions.
Unless it's a random number generator that just says yes/no but can't tell you why -- is just as valid of a non-excuse for using the entirely wrong solution to a problem, and surprise the solution doesn't work very well.
Recently there's been some interest in Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) which addresses the problem of "black box" machines. There are techniques such as SHAP and LIME that can help the ML designers provide explanations for why any specific observation has been "rejected". That said, I'm not sure if that's what Google uses here.