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joelpurra / talkie

Text-to-speech browser extension button. Select text on any web page, and have the computer read it out loud for you by simply clicking the Talkie button.
https://joelpurra.com/projects/talkie/
GNU General Public License v3.0
71 stars 18 forks source link

Talkie and Talkie Premium deleted by Google Chrome Web Store #17

Closed joelpurra closed 3 years ago

joelpurra commented 3 years ago

The situation has been resolved

Starting with Talkie v6.0.0, Talkie and Talkie Premium have been merged into a single extension. Talkie can now be upgraded to Talkie Premium directly in the extension options.

Current standalone Talkie Premium extension users should switch to Talkie. You can upgrade Talkie to include Talkie Premium features at no extra cost.

Expected behavior

Able to easily install Talkie and Talkie Premium using the Google Chrome Web Store (CWS).

Actual behavior

Steps to reproduce behavior

Click on CWS links from, for example, the README.md.

Website

System information

joelpurra commented 3 years ago

From my perspective, it seems Talkie and Talkie Premium were deleted because of a combination of two issues.

  1. CWS considers Talkie and Talkie Premium to be "spam"/"repetitive content" extensions, because they are similar in functionality. This is the reason found in the deletion messages. Note that the CWS staff previously confirmed (in a direct support message, as well as by approving the extension updates) that they allowed Talkie and Talkie Premium to co-exist, as Talkie Premium has additional paid features.
  2. Talkie Premium can no longer use CWS for payments, since Google is shutting down payments for extensions. This would, from CWS perspective, remove the argument that Talkie and Talkie Premium are different, because of the paid premium features. The final CWS payment shutdown date has not yet arrived though.

I have reached out to CWS support for clarification on the deletion, but no reply yet.

Trying to get Talkie and Talkie Premium reinstated as-is is a short-term solution, and will presumably fail once CWS payments are shut down permanently. It seems the way forward is to:

This hinges on CWS approving the updates to be published. There are no guarantees for that, since it's a proprietary system owned by Google.

The CWS spam policy:

Repetitive Content: We don't allow any developer, related developer accounts, or their affiliates to submit multiple extensions that provide duplicate experiences or functionality on the Chrome Web Store. Extensions should provide value to users through the creation of unique content or services.

The CWS payments deprecation timeline.

CWS payments deprecation milestone dates

  • Feb 1, 2021 Your existing items and in-app purchases can no longer charge money with Chrome Web Store payments. You can still query license information for previously paid purchases and subscriptions. (The licensing API will accurately reflect the status of active subscriptions, but these subscriptions won't auto-renew.)
  • At some future time The licensing API will no longer allow you to determine license status for your users.
joelpurra commented 3 years ago

An initial version of the "merged" Talkie, which also contains paid/upgradable Talkie Premium features, was submitted to CWS circa one day ago. It is still pending review, and have received no reply in the support message thread. (They say that they have longer response times due to the pandemic.)

Still unsure if the current Talkie Premium will also need to be replaced with a dummy version before Google accepts the new Talkie; hoping they will clarify sooner rather than later. Either way, I will give them some more time then create the dummy version as a fallback.

joelpurra commented 3 years ago

The "merged" Talkie was denied publishing. Google has clarified that either Talkie or Talkie Premium has to be unpublished (and possibly deleted as well, but by me as a developer rather than the deletion already performed by Google) from CWS, and until then neither can be published.

No response yet to (follow-up) questions regarding:

  1. How unpublishing affects current users (paying!) Talkie Premium users. I don't want it to just disappear from their browsers. The support pages do not mention if/how this is different to the current deletion.
  2. How to transition those users to the "merged" Talkie, for example if a "dummy" version can be uploaded during a transition period. This type of simple extension might be in violation of some other policy...

At least there seems to be the option of just going ahead and unpublishing Talkie Premium to get Talkie published again.

By the way, it is noted on the CWS support pages that once an extension has been denied, deleted, or similar, it gets a lower support priority. That is in addition to already mentioned longer response times due to the pandemic.

joelpurra commented 3 years ago

Received a reply from the CWS support.

Regarding how unpublishing affects (paying) Talkie Premium users, in particular if the extension will be removed from their browsers:

No more information will be disclosed regarding this due to security reasons.

So I guess that's a dead end.

Regarding transitioning users from Talkie Premium to Talkie:

For more information, please refer to this FAQ.

The FAQ says:

https://developer.chrome.com/docs/webstore/spam-faq/#consolidation

Developers can only consolidate their user base before enforcement action is taken against their extensions, beginning on August 27, 2020. If you do not remove the repetitive extensions before this policy is enforced against them, you will lose your user base.

These steps were not performed before the deadline to transition users from Talkie Premium to Talkie, since it at that time both extensions had approval from CWS support to co-exist. This approval had been wrongly assumed to extend to at least February 2021.

It seems the next step is just to unpublish (and possibly "delete", both of which which have unclear effects) Talkie Premium, so that at least Talkie can be published again. Sorry in advance to Talkie Premium users, in case you are negatively affected by this.

joelpurra commented 3 years ago

Please note that I have no way of contacting Talkie Premium users to ask them to switch to the merged Talkie. If you are a paying user, do not worry -- you can use all features from Talkie Premium once the updated Talkie v6.0.0 has been approved. Please see the "upgrade" tab in Talkie's options once you have installed Talkie v6.0.0.

joelpurra commented 3 years ago

Talkie v5.0.3 has been reinstated in CWS.

Note that this is the "old" version, which does not have all Talkie Premium features. I will now attempt to get Talkie v6.0.0 approved as well.

joelpurra commented 3 years ago

Talkie v6.0.0 has been approved and is now available in CWS. Version upgrades for individual Talkie users happen automatically over time, at a pace set by Google.

This message was received three days after (2021-02-07) Talkie v6.0.0 was approved (2021-03-04).

Thank you for reaching out to us. Upon a subsequent review, we found your extension is compliant with all our policies. The submission is approved and the latest version of the extension will be published in the Chrome Web Store shortly.

A message to current users of the separate Talkie Premium extension

The separate Talkie Premium extension is no longer available from the Chrome Web Store. It is recommended that current users of the separate Talkie Premium extension switch to Talkie v6.0.0, since Talkie Premium features are available to them at no extra cost.

Switching is optional, and you are free to keep using the separate Talkie Premium extension as long as you want. There is no guarantee on how long the separate Talkie Premium extension will continue to work though, since Google has blocked all updates and may forcefully disable/uninstall it at some point (possibly once the paid Talkie Premium subscription has expired).

Steps for current Talkie Premium users:

Once Talkie v6.0.0 is confirmed to work with Talkie Premium features: