In February, due to a surge in fraudulent activity, Google suspended the placement and updating of paid extensions in the official Chrome Internet Browser Store. In order to protect users, the company reported tightening regulations to clear the platform of obsolete and unsafe applications that mislead people.
In February, due to a surge in fraudulent activity, Google suspended the placement and updating of paid extensions in the official Chrome Internet Browser Store. In order to protect users, the company reported tightening regulations to clear the platform of obsolete and unsafe applications that mislead people.
Google explains that the store has recently been flooded with spammers and crooks. Most expansions do not serve any useful purpose and are designed to draw attention to certain services and products.
New rules for Google Chrome Store extensions:
- It is forbidden to duplicate extensions with different names and the same content.
- Extensions are not allowed to use «key spam» methods to fill the metadata fields with several terms to improve entry into search results.
- Developers are not allowed to use misleading, improperly formatted, irrelevant, excessive, inappropriate, and unspecified metadata.
- It is prohibited to artificially increase the evaluation of the product, including through paid services.
- It is forbidden to post extensions that have only one purpose: to start a web page or application.
- All extensions that abuse browser notifications to give spam, advertising or other messages to users are prohibited.
If the extension developers do not fix their products according to the new rules, they will be removed from the Chrome store automatically after August 27.
