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A browser extension that acted as an anti-censorship tool for 185,000 people has been kicked out of the Chrome store by Google. The open source Ahoy! tool facilitated access to more than 1,700 blocked sites but is now under threat. Despite several requests, Google has provided no reason for its decision.
Last December, TF reported on SitesBloqueados (Blocked Sites) a web portal run by Revolução dos Bytes (Bytes' Revolution), a group of anti-censorship activists in Portugal.
Internet censorship is common in the country, with more than 1,700 sites banned from regular Internet access for reasons ranging from copyright to gambling. The process does not require intervention from the courts so Revolução dos Bytes decided to keep an eye on things with its Ahoy! Chrome and Firefox extension.
"Ahoy! basically bypasses any traffic to a blocked site through our own proxies, allowing the users to navigate in a free, uncensored internet," team member Henrique Mouta previously told TF.
Not only is Ahoy! able to unblock sites, it can also detect newly blocked domains and feed information back, so that its unblocking abilities are always up to date.
Things had been going well. After servicing 100,000 users last December, Ahoy! grew to almost 185,000 users this year. However, progress and indeed the project itself is now under threat after arbitrary action by Google.
"Google decided to remove us from Chrome's Web Store without any justification", Henrique informs TF.
"We always make sure our code is high quality, secure and 100% free (as in beer and as in freedom). All the source code is open source. And we're pretty sure we never broke any of the Google's marketplace rules."
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Tuesday August 14 2018, @04:19AM
It's probably the AI deciding that their extension was malicious, low quality, a copycat, .
It's one of those thing you take for granted. Sure, the app store has shit in it, but you would not believe how bad it would be without automated vetting. Random apps whose names are just iterations of top keywords. Millions of ripoffs of Candy Crush or whatever is the game du jour. Apps with 50% screen space devoted to ads. And so on.
Yes, AI makes mistakes. Humans make mistakes too, generally far more often.
And what do you know, the article includes an update:
Update2: Google responded to the people behind Ahoy! informing them that the extension was removed for not having an appropriate privacy policy. That will now be remedied and Ahoy! will be resubmitted to Google.
Lots of FUD about nothing. Automated system identified a problem, people start screaming bloody murder.
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