Ask HN: How to escalate a rejected Google extension?
I submit an extension (an adblocker) to Google Chrome's web store.
Google keeps rejecting it for dubious reasons. The first rejection was claim it was "spam". When I appealed, the review came back that it contained "additional functionality" because it uses "modifies network traffic". Well of course it does! When I asked the reviewer how I could achieve the stated functionality of blocking ads without the use of "declarativeNetRequest" I simply received the same canned response.
I submit a totally new update that simplified the code and included comments, and references to other open source projecs that use the exact same mechanisms. Again it was rejected. On this appeal I asked if it could be escalated to a senior reviewer who could possibly reply with more context. Same canned response and rejection.
I can't help but think Google has some internal policy to give adblockers a runaround. It is obvious to me the stated rejections are not valid (Note that I'm also not new to this - I have several extensions that have been published for years with thousands of users) but have never encountered such gate-keeping before.
It's a sad state of affairs even if not totally unpredictable. To be honest I'm surprised Google hasn't made it an official policy to prohibit adblockers. But they haven't - obviously there are other adblockers published to the store, and that's what makes this so frustrating.
Anyway, fellow developers. Anyone run into a similar situation? And how did you resolve it? Thanks!
"Excuse me sir, would you mind carrying this extension that goes against your core business of selling ads?"
Publish it as a Firefox add-on instead.
Yeah, this exactly. Google goes out of their way to be as unfriendly to adblockers as possible in Chrome. I don't know why anyone is still even using Chrome or why you would want to support them (by value-adding to their browser) with your efforts.