Magic Actions for YouTube - About 10 Years on CWS - Removed Today Without Notifiaction!

[Chris Zalcman]

ATTENTION for other developers! Google can Remove Your Extensions and Apps at any time without any notification and real reason! 

Magic Actions for YouTube - about 10 years on CWS - over 2M users and today was removed from CWS without notification and legal reason!

After removal devs got this unknown message from CWS :

"Developers must not obfuscate code or conceal functionality of their extension. This also applies to any external code or resource fetched by the extension package."

Magic Actions use recommended by Google minification techniques i.e Google Closure Compiler:  

https://developers.google.com/speed/docs/insights/MinifyResources

I guess, but Magic Actions for YouTube was removed due to the following topic and paranoid Google Top Contributor: 

https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!topic/chromium-extensions/c4NQGwfjdnM

Definitely, some Google workers cover their Top Contributor abnormal activity. They not understand how this negatively affects the reputation 

of the company as a whole?  Well, time will tell us.

[Simeon Vincent]

The extension was removed for a clearly stated reason: "Developers must not obfuscate code". Peaking through the CRX, it looks like this extension has mangled filenames and JS files have a decent amount of variable indirection. IMO this is lightly obfuscated but obfuscated nonetheless. I haven't seen Closure Compiler produce output like this before but perhaps I just haven't used the right combination of settings?

To get back into the store you need only republish without obfuscation. If you're worried your minification toolchain might be catching you out I'd recommend simply disabling it for now. Your existing users still have the extension installed and will pick up the latest version as soon as it's published.

Simeon - @dotproto

Extensions Developer Advocate

[Chris Zalcman]

I know developers and all process, Simeon, all code is minified by Google Closure Compiler - I know this 100%.

Now see at the following topic, I guess this topic was created by your Top Contrbutor:

https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/9yfic2/removed_magic_actions_for_youtube_chrome_whats_a/

You have removed legitimate extension without real reason and you know that extension code is not obfuscated - the fact.

Tomorrow I will call to the Google headquarters, soon you will get some interesting questions, about what happens at CWS 

and why you cover such Top Contributor activity by removing legitimate extension(s),

Best wishes.

[Chris Zalcman]

Hi Simeon, 

compiler params:

"usr/local/jre/bin/java" -jar closure-compiler-v20190301.jar --charset UTF-8 --compilation_level SIMPLE_OPTIMIZATIONS --language_in ECMASCRIPT5 --language_out ECMASCRIPT5 --js="<src_path>"

[Chris Zalcman]

Compiler version used for the latest package: 

closure-compiler-v20190215

[Edgar Toulum]

@Chris Zalcman, this isn't news for the CWS support team, they're probably some easily irritable 20-somethings that just act on their own wits. If Google management knew, they'd surely have done something until now, but it's clear they don't, probably because Chrome extensions don't represent an important revenue stream, so they leave us with whoever is there to play God.

Yesterday (Saturday, they work on Sats), our founder received an email from CWS that our extension "Super Viewer for Facebook" is pending removal because of violating a peculiar policy (singular purpose) and we have 7 days to redress. @Simeon, I hope this doesn't have anything to do with you and our last week's kind & decent beef on this group, right?

Well, he replied that first of all we were expecting a reply to a ticket we sent 2 weeks ago to the CWS support, when we noticed there's been clearly a manual intervention on Chrome's side to affect our traffic quality in the store, the traffic jumped 2X and the quality/conversion dropped 2X. Also, he stated that our extension DOES serve a single purpose - customizing Facebook - and it can't be done in a single operation, because customization can mean news feed filtering, changing backgrounds, changing colors, many others. TODAY (yes, they work on Sundays too, when they commit abuses) he received a new email stating the extension has been removed. You can clearly see the childish frustrated behavior, abusive & vengeful, just wanting to do harm - and yesterday's email with the 7 days redressing allowance policy, just doesn't matter anymore.

They're a bunch of kids on the CWS support, Chris, and Google's management is unsuspecting, they don't care because it's not about revenue. We're at the mercy of some hipsters here.

[Chris Zalcman]

As we can see the extension was removed three days ago. Thanks to Simeon, this man reviewed our source code and no obfuscation found.

But, the extension still not reviewed by CWS , no reply, nothing. We share with Alphabet 32% of our income and are EMEA partners, but it seems a corrupt Chrome TC and his useless products are more necessary for this company. We have not yet reported about removal to the appropriate department and our curator, but most likely it is necessary. Only an investigation by another department can establish the true reason for the extension removal, a Chrome Top Contributor's products promotion and another "invisible" tricks.

[Innonetlife Admin]

Dude, just stop

Looking through reviews (real ones, not your fake ones) and reputable sources, this extension is doing some shopping shady things, alongside your other extension. Personally, I believe Google did the right thing in taking it down

If you really need money, make it a paid extension but the ads and other crap your using borders on illegal, and break Google CWS TOS

Either fix your extension, or stop whining that it got taken down. You break the rules, there are consequences.

If it matters to you, Google (and your devs), I stand behind this decision

[Edgar Toulum]

@Innonetlife Admin, I don't know your agenda, but who gave you permission to mark this conversation 'Complete'??

This was between disgruntled devs and GWS, didn't involve you whatsoever. It was about suddenly removed extensions with little to no reason from Chrome's team, nothing about monetization.

Actually, Chris said something about revenue-sharing above, so again - what's your part and what's your point?

I'm not affiliated with Chris Zalcman or their extension in any way, never used it, maybe it violated CWS TOS maybe it didn't, but again who said anything about reviews?? You're clearly a fake account 

just wanting to do harm to the competition and a moderator should check into your behavior.

For what it's worth, my extension is also abusively pending removal because of some supposedly automated CWS mechanism, so I'm NOT standing behind any decision like you - do you know HOW it was 

taken or what exactly was the decision?

P.S. * You shouldn't be allowed to use restricted terms in your user name such as "Admin"

[Innonetlife Admin]

A) My name is intentionally anonymous. I am the sysadmin of Innonetlife, nothing shady there.
B) I've had this account for almost two years, use it for my phone, YouTube, Gmail, etc. So your point is moot. I subscribed to this group in the manifest v3 changes thread, and noticed this conversation in my email
C) I use to use and love magic actions, until I dived deeper into the dev, and the extension kept directing to pages blocked by uBlock origin as malware or advertising, or requires ads to change anything
D) You look like a scam, if you don't mind me saying. Same behavior exhibition of a clearly fake Reddit account, and taking a look for myself, along with trusted information, my estimate is > 30 fake Google account by the extension developer (which violated Google TOS, I believe. Especially as they are used to bloat his positive reviews and other things)
E) You do realize that CWS is Google property, right? They can do what they want with it, and it is clearly stated, along with evident, that this extension violated TOS of Google, therefore they can and will take action as they see fit

[Edgar Toulum]

The whole point here was CWS erroneous or abusive removals.

I'm the lead coder for the "Super Viewer for Facebook" extension which is also pending removal, and we never collected any user data or injected malicious code. Also, that's our property and we could do what we want with it, just like you with Innonetlife or Google with CWS, yet we don't shit on users just because we can.

[Chris Zalcman]

Five days Taken Down and Two days Pending Review.

Latest version already reviewed by CWS. 

New version has been uploaded - pending review...

There are no reasons why the extension was removed, but I guess only one - 

an envious Top-Super-Admin-Expert Contributor, not Google employee, 

complained. How can this be?

Because of a cool scheme with contributors..company do not need to pay or pay very less, 

no responsibility, gave the title like Top-Admin-Expert Contributor and people will do everything 

company need. Are the Top-Turn-Off-Contributor understand, he will be the responsible for everything, 

not the company.

[Chris Zalcman]

Pending review for one week.

[Keith Kraemer]

Hi Simeon,

Our extension was taken down due to "Developers must not obfuscate code". The extension id is jeaepbakacaiplhmkdpjkbpjcpeenfdf, its crx file is attached. It's my first attempt at an extension. The extension allows users to add wishes from any website to their wish list at wishlist.com. It's a simple extension and I have no idea how it's obfuscated code. It's not minified since it's so simple. I'd be interested if you also felt it's obfuscated code. 

best regards,

Keith

[Simeon Vincent]

Have you tried to contest the review by replying to the takedown email?