Google Yanked My Chrome Extension This Sunday [updated]
I woke up Sunday morning to an email from Google saying that the BeeLine Reader extension for Chrome did not comply with the following requirement:
Provide a link to your privacy policy in appropriate field [sic] in the Chrome Web Store Developer Console and on the inline installation page (if applicable).
I know Google is cleaning up the Chrome Store a bit, and I’m all for this. I can see how they’d want extensions to link to the governing Privacy Policy — and in fact we already told people where our Privacy Policy is. We said (I’m paraphrasing here since I no longer have access to the old version): “You can access our Privacy Policy via our website.” We provided a link to our website, and every single public page on our website contains a link to our Privacy Policy.
But if Google wanted a direct link, that was fine — I updated the BeeLine Reader extension within hours of receiving this first email — and well before the 7-day deadline described in the email (“Please make the above changes within 7 days in order to avoid removal”). Just to be safe, I also sent a reply to the email (which said to reply with questions) indicating that I’d submitted an update.
I received no response to my reply.
Then tonight (still Sunday), I got this email from Google:
Dear Developer,
We have not received an update from you on your Google Chrome item, “BeeLine Reader,” with ID: ifjafammaookpiajfbedmacfldaiamgg, item before the expiry of the warning period specified in our earlier email. Because your item continues to not comply with our policies stated in the previous email, it has now been removed from the Google Chrome Web Store.
There are at least two problems with this email. First, the “warning period specified in [the] earlier email” had not elapsed. It had been less than 24 hours, not 7 days. And it was a Sunday, for crying out loud!
Second, I had in fact submitted an update that fixed the issue described. And frankly, the prior version of the extension already described exactly where the Privacy Policy is located, and provided a link to our website, where it is copiously linked.
Lastly, it’s worth noting that the BeeLine Reader extension has been live since September 2013. It has had tens of thousands of active users for several years, along with a solid user rating. And it’s such a great tool for reading on-screen, that Google’s own Accessibility Team includes it in their presentations at conferences.
But for now, it’s down for the count. If you know anyone at Google, please help! Hacker News discussion here.
UPDATE: Although I was not able to make any headway through the official channels I tried, I was ultimately able to get this resolved through a friend on the Google Accessibility team. Unfortunately, we have still (2 weeks later) not been able to submit any updates to our extension. It is unclear what the current hangup is, but it seems to be stemming from the original erroneous flag on our account.
