Google Announces Chrome Web Store Crackdown For August 2020

Google announced this week new rules for the Chrome Web Store in an attempt to cut down the number of shady Chrome extensions submitted and listed on the site. From a report: Starting August 27, Google says it intends to enforce a new set of rules, which will result in a large number of extensions being delisted. These rules are meant to crack down on a series of practices extension developers have been recently employing to flood the Web Store with shady extensions or boost install counts for low-quality content. They include:
1. Developers cannot submit duplicate extensions anymore. (e.g. Wallpaper extensions that have different names but provide the user with the same wallpapers when installed.)
2. Extensions are not allowed to use "keyword spam" techniques to flood metadata fields with multiple terms and have the extension listed across multiple categories to improve the extension's visibility in search results.
3. Developers are not allowed to use misleading, improperly formatted, non-descriptive, irrelevant, excessive, or inappropriate metadata. Extension metadata needs to be accurate, and Google intends to be strict about it.
4. Developers are now forbidden from inflating product ratings, reviews, or install counts by illegitimate means, such as fraudulent or paid downloads, reviews, and ratings.

So, in conclusion

[ugen]

If you are an honest developer, creating a single useful extension, and have little extra time or resources to comply with vague and poorly understood Google moving targets, you will promptly get banned on arbitrary grounds, and spend months in Google "customer service hell" trying to get it reinstated
If
If you are a spam-and-hackery factory in China, you'll be able flood to overload the system, use cheap labor to overcome any hurdles Google may place, and continue abusing it unimpeded

Re:

[Guybrush_T]

Well there will be cases of legitimate apps getting removed. That's for sure. But their goal is just to be able to unleash AI bots which will be able to review and remove applications that are flooded by spam factories.

Actually it's the only possible solution against flooding. Of course the it will be always be a cat-and-mouse game (look at new apps and re-train AIs as soon as new techniques emerge), and of course some legitimate apps will be caught in the fire, especially at the beginning, but I can't see

Re:

[The New Guy 2.0]

Android was first thought as an Open Source operating system... but that went seriously downhill. Now they find Apple's App Store is the better system, so they're about to lock down their store as well.

Re:

[Waccoon]

This is why "curated" code and Trusted Computing doesn't work. We all know this stuff is rubberstamped, and only banned after-the-fact if it turns into a PR problem or if the store owner just doesn't like you.

Re: So, in conclusion

[NoMoreACs]

This is why "curated" code and Trusted Computing doesn't work. We all know this stuff is rubberstamped, and only banned after-the-fact if it turns into a PR problem or if the store owner just doesn't like you.

This was true for the Google Play Store, and obviously for the other Android stores; but not for Apple. Some malware still got in; but the incredible disparity in numbers of malware for the Apple App Stores and Android ones clearly points to a difference in testing methods.

google needs to do a good house cleaning

[FudRucker]

on the android google playstore, it is a damn mess of spamvertising apps, and some of which is downright malicious, and from what i recently read some of it is trojans that steal personal information on everything from usernames & your shit together if you are going to offer storage for secure apps for login and banking and shopping, and get rid of the goddamn spammy adware apps, or i will abandon your crapware

Re:

[FudRucker]

my keyboard is getting wonky, it cut about a line of words out of that

in the glorious cyberpunk future we're living in..

[kylemonger]

... we were supposed to have painless and automated reputation services to steer us clear of the inevitable morass of malware that bazaar-type marketplaces produce. Where are these services?

Re:

[Randj Herdle]

When we have someone who is willing to pay for them.

Question is...

[fatp]

Why are such practices allowed in first time?

I was told walled gardens are bad

[theurge14]

I was told walled gardens are bad, so what is going on here?

Re:

[Otto]

"Tragedy of the commons".

Building a walled garden can be bad, but allowing free and unfettered access to an open field for everybody's use can too.

Why?

[RitchCraft]

Why weren't these measures in place in the first place? Seems like a fricken no-brainer. Oh, that's right, make as much money as you can until the money maker becomes a problem. Then *fix* it when you knew it was shady all along. Hell, that's big tech 101, nothing new here.

Re: Why?

[NoMoreACs]

Why weren't these measures in place in the first place? Seems like a fricken no-brainer. Oh, that's right, make as much money as you can until the money maker becomes a problem. Then *fix* it when you knew it was shady all along. Hell, that's big tech 101, nothing new here.

Hmmm. Since nearly everyone on Slashdot believes that Apple is the greediest of them all, by your logic, they should have allowed anyone and everyone to publish whatever malware-ridden crapola they could make their 30% commission on. So why didnâ(TM)t they?

Itâ(TM)s almost like they gave a shit for their users,

Nah, that couldnâ(TM)t be it; must be some other nefarious profiteering angle, right?

Re:

[Randj Herdle]

Let's try this instead.

A 30% commission would make CEO's and legislator's get pissed that someone's making more off contracts than they can. Even at Russian Railways, I doubt if 30% of their budget is earmarked as "Misc Expenses & Bribes"