Google halts paid-for Chrome extension updates amid fraud surge: Web Store in lockdown ‘due to the scale of abuse’

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Google halts paid-for Chrome extension updates amid fraud surge: Web Store
Meanwhile, probe reveals how Avast’s ‘anonymized’ user data can be, er, dea
Google’s clever-clogs are focused on many things, but not this: The Chrome

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On Saturday, Google temporarily disabled the ability to publish paid Chrome apps, extensions, and themes in the Chrome Web Store due to a surge in fraud.
“Earlier this month the Chrome Web Store team detected a significant increase in the number of fraudulent transactions involving paid Chrome extensions that aim to exploit users,” said Simeon Vincent, developer advocate for Chrome Extensions, in a post to the Chromium Extensions forum.
Developers who have paid extensions, subscriptions, or in-app purchases and received a rejection notice for “Spam and Placement in the Store,” he said, can probably attribute the notification to the fraud fighting shutdown.
Google did not respond to a request to clarify how Chrome Web Store fraud was being carried out.
The Chrome Web Store has a one-time payment system called Chrome Web Store Payments.
For Chrome Apps, which soon will be phased out in Chrome (and later for ChromeOS), developers can use a Google Payments Merchant Account and Chrome Web Store API to sell in-app virtual goods.
Over the past few days, developers of Chrome extensions have been reporting account suspensions and app rejections that appear to be related to the fraud emergency.
Google’s clever-clogs are focused on many things, but not this: The Chrome Web Store.
In an email to The Register, Jeff Johnson, who runs Lapcat Software, which makes macOS and iOS audio apps and a privacy extension for Chrome and Safari called StopTheMadness, said that existing extensions remain accessible in the Chrome Web Store, but updates and new extensions are being rejected.
“I submitted a minor bug fix update on January 19, and I received an email on January 22 from Chrome Web Store Developer Support titled ‘Chrome Web Store: Removal notification for StopTheMadness,'” he explained, noting that the extension was not removed but the update was rejected

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