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Comment by joel_liu | Hacker News Reader

Hi, This is Joel, the developer of awesome screenshot the article mentioned. First of all, I apologize for what I did for it in the last version a day ago.

I'd like to share with you my intension for this amazon + google search feature.

1) It's from my need. When I search some shopping items from google, I always want to check them in amazon also.

2) It can help us make small mount of money.

3) I provide an option to disable it.

However, I did it in a wrong way. I should did it like this: 1) Disable it by default. 2) Ask user's permission to enable it 3) Tell users why we add it.

I did it wrong but still respect users. This feature exists only one day and I removed it in the new version(3.2.1).

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You should be more honest and re-order 1 and 2. Putting affiliate links into Google search results isn't even in the same category as taking a screenshot of a page. Why "scratch that itch" in an extension that is completely unrelated unless your primary interest was to make money.

Now there's nothing wrong with making money, and I don't even disagree with the way that you attempted to monetize the awesome screenshot extension (via affiliate links). But be honest with users about your motivation. Most will understand.

> I removed it in the new version(3.2.1).

No need to remove it. Just disclose it to the users. It is supposedly a great plugin (as per rating on the chrome store), and you deserve to be compensated for it. Just let people know at the time of installation how this plugin is expected to trickle some money for your efforts, and you should be fine.

My initial reaction to this was shock and disgust and I quickly uninstalled the extension.

However after seeing Joel's actions to address the issue promptly I'm glad to re-install the newest version.

I think, like many users, I really don't (didn't?) mind as long as the details of what's going on behind the scenes in the extension are clearly explained. I would even be happy to pitch in a few affiliate shekels with the developer of the app.

In short, honest disclosure wins out.

Hey. I used AwesomeScreenshot quite often, but I've since uninstalled it. I installed a tool to take screenshots of my browser, not to hijack my Google search results with a shitty Amazon search that I end up clicking on half the time because the content loads in one second after the rest of the page, replacing the first search result under my mouse.

If I wanted Amazon search results for my Google searches, I would install an addon to do just that. Bundling that sort of behavior with AwesomeScreenshot is just another form of malware, and is no better than something like Skype spamming up my system with unasked-for browser toolbars and adware. I appreciate the tool, but I'm not going to run any of your code if you feel it's acceptable to play fast-and-loose with your userbase like that. I'll find/write my own.

Not cool. At all.

It looks like the extension was removed from the store, was it intentional?

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/alelhddbbhepgpmgid...

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