Google developers who are in charge of the development of Chrome have expressed their annoyance regarding the plug-in review, since for some time now noticed an increase in review times lately And that a large percentage of the add-ons they review are add-ons that spam or target data theft.
And is that even that Google warned about the tightening of the rules to publish plugins on the Chrome Web Store, malicious plugin developers have not reduced their activity And with it now, Google developers changed the rules.
As now they made a change in their policies pTo combat manipulations that prevent evaluating the essence of the add-on, such as camouflage of known add-ons, provide false information about the functionality, create false reviews or modify the rating of these by buying reviews.
In response, our abuse systems and review teams have worked hard to ensure that the Chrome Web Store is abuse-free, as many of our developers have noticed an increase in review times lately.
With this change, all plugin developers have until August 27, developers must bring additions to meet the new requirementsOtherwise they will be removed from the catalog.
However, the increase in extension platform adoption has also attracted spammers and scammers who introduce deceptive and low-quality extensions in an attempt to trick and trick our users into installing them for a quick profit.
The following changes are mentioned:
- The developers or their affiliates they are prohibited from publishing multiple plugins that provide identical functionality (duplicate plugins with other names). As examples of invalid plugins, an extension is provided with a wallpaper that contains a different description, but sets the same background image as in the other plugin. Or plugins to convert formats that are offered under different names (for example, Fahrenheit to Celsius, Celsius to Fahrenheit), but they direct the user to the same page for conversion. The placement of close trial versions in functionality is allowed, but the description must clearly indicate that it is a trial version and a link to the main version is provided.
- Plugins must not include misleading metadata, incorrectly formatted, inconsistent, irrelevant, excessive, or inappropriate in fields such as description, developer name, title, screenshots, and attached images. Developers must provide a clear and understandable description. It is not allowed to mention in the description of the unarchived or anonymous user reviews.
- Developers are prohibited from trying to manipulate the position of extensions on the Chrome Web Store listings, including "inflating" the rating, creating dummy reviews, and misleading the number of installs using fraudulent schemes or artificially stimulating user activity. For example, offering bonuses for installing add-ons is prohibited.
- The complements whose sole purpose is installing or running other applications, themes or web pages are prohibited.
- Plugins that abuse the notification system for sending spam are prohibited, displaying advertisements, promoting products, phishing or displaying other unsolicited messages that interfere with the user's work. Additionally, plug-ins that send messages on behalf of the user are prohibited, without giving the user the ability to verify content and confirm recipients (for example, block plug-ins that send invitations to the user's address book).
We want to make sure that the path of a user discovering a Chrome Web Store extension is clear and informative and is not confused with copycats, misleading functionalities, or false reviews and ratings.
It is observed that the catalog, which has more than 200 thousand accessories, It has become the focus of attention from spammers and scammers who have started to publish deceptive and low-quality plugins that do not perform useful actions, impose themselves on users and focus only on drawing attention to certain services or products.