Inadequate customer support (about a wrongful extension rejection)

[TPD Dev]

A short summary. Our extension (ID: fpepjgganmmnbbeiobaalkkajjnonkec) was wrongfully rejected 16 days ago. In the meantime we exchanged countless of emails with your support, but the responses were subpar every single time.

We got a little hope when we got connected to Patrick Kettner 12 days ago. He was offering us great support and communicated with us that "our rejection is being reviewed by the people in charge of writing the policies". But the thing is that was 12 days ago. Since then we've got zero actual updates on the actuall progress of our case (which is of course not Patrick's fault). He was letting us know that unfortunately he shared everything he was able to share (that there are no updates). But that was 5 days ago, and since then we haven't heard from him.

As you can imagine this entire project being rejected is a huge deal for us, as we've been working on this for 7/8 months. So it's not even that we're impatient (as it's already been 16 days since rejections which is quite a while), but we're getting a bit frustrated already. We've being relatively calm since hearing from Patrick, but after that stopped, so did our calmness as you can imagine.

But the biggest factor was yet another lazy,  inadequate and poor response from a general support team who was taking care of our official complaint case ([5-5004000040115]) which just repeated the same reason for cancelation that was repeated to us "lazily" for 4 times already. Our biggest frustration is that we feel nobody is even reading and aknowledging our justifications and arguments. So hopefully, whoever is kind enough to reply to this inquiry will be able to help us solve this. And I want to repeat again that Patrick was of a a great help, we just fear our case was slighlty buried and that nothing is happening on that front.

So if someone new will be taking on this inquiry, allow me to share the summary of our justifications/arguments/precedents one more time (we said something along this lines in dozens of emails already, but not one time were these point addressed).

Thank you in advance to whoever will be taking on this case. You can't imagine how good any sort of help and actual assistance will feel. I hope you can imagine how big of a deal working on something for 7/8 months just to then be wrongfully rejected and feel like you're not even being heard/seen is.

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The 2 rejections cited two specific policy violations. Below, we provide evidence demonstrating why neither of these violations applies to our submission.

Violation 1: "We don’t allow items that contain or direct users to content with nudity, graphic sex acts, or sexually explicit material."

Our Response: This violation is factually incorrect regarding our submission. We strictly adhere to the Safe-For-Work (SFW) ecosystem guidelines.

• 1. Zero Explicit Content: The extension itself—including the manifest, source code, UI pop-ups, and Store Listing—contains absolutely zero sexually explicit material, nudity, or graphic content.

• 2. No Direct Linking: The extension does not direct users to explicit sites. It links exclusively to our verified, Safe-For-Work discount landing page (tpd.deals).

• 3. Jurisdiction of Navigation: Based on Web Store policy, compliance is determined by the extension's immediatelink destination. Our immediate destination is compliant. Any navigation beyond that verified page is user-initiated behavior, conceptually identical to a Google Search result leading to a specific domain.

Violation 2: "Providing functionality on pornographic sites."

Our Response: The rejection claims we are banned for "detecting" or "functioning" on adult domains. However, this ruling contradicts the established enforcement standards applied to other Universal Utilitiescurrently active on the Web Store.

We request that our extension be evaluated under the same "Utility Exception" applied to the following categories that function on these exact same domains:

• Password Managers (e.g., LastPass, 1Password): These extensions explicitly detect login fields on pornographic websites and inject data (credentials). They are allowed because they are classified as Utilities.

• AdBlockers (e.g., uBlock Origin):These extensions actively scan and modify the DOM on pornographic sites to remove ads. They are permitted as content-neutral tools.

• VPN Extensions (e.g., NordVPN):These explicitly facilitate access to blocked adult sites.

Our Compliance Argument: Our extension performs the exact same technical action as these approved utilities: It detects the domain to provide a content-neutral service (savings/coupons).

If the Web Store permits a Password Manager to inject data into a porn site, it must equitably permit a Shopping Utility to inject a discount code into the same site. We are requesting that our extension be re-classified as a Shopping Utility consistent with these existing precedents.

Conclusion Based on the above, the rejection reasons are invalid:

1. We do not contain or link to explicit content.

2. Our "functionality" on these sites is standard for accepted Web Store Utilities.

[Patrick Kettner]

Hello Nik 

As mentioned multiple times, the point of your extension is to give discounts to people buying pornography subscriptions. As highlighted to you multiple times, the Chrome Web Store policy says “

1. We don't allow content that contains nudity, graphic sex acts, sexually explicit material, or content that drives traffic to commercial pornography sites.

”. If an extensions purpose is to drive discounted subscriptions to pornographic sites then it is, by definition, content that drives traffic to commercial photographic sites. Therefore against the content restrictions. I took multiple hours of meetings and dozens of emails over those 12 days looking for any alternative other than a flat no, and them with you. 

As mentioned multiple times, you are absolutely welcome to build and share your extension to run in Chrome or Chromium browsers, but it is not something that we will distribute through the Chrome Web Store. 

I am very sympathetic to how you invested a lot of time and energy into the project, but the policy of the site really could not be more clear. If you ever wish to work on another extension, then I would encourage you to read the content restrictions or reach out to us for clarifying questions before spending that time building it. 

We have discussed this on multiple channels and repeatedly opening same complaint over different channels will not change the outcome. If you continue to post this more than you will likely be tagged as spam and blocked from posting. 

I am very sorry it did not work out better. 

Patrick

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