zlacker

>>yuvada+(OP)
At the risk of downvotes: Is anyone really surprised?

AdNauseam is silently clicking ads. This directly costs Google money. Google happens to control the extension web store for their own browser. Removing it from the store really isn't that bad. Uninstalling it from existing browsers as malware? A little more malicious, but I would still consider it self defense.

There is even a method to install it directly[1] which AFAIK Google has not blocked.

Granted, if Google were not both running the browser and the ad network, these actions probably wouldn't have been taken. But the whole attitude that this is some sort of tyrannical thing is a little over the top.

1. https://github.com/dhowe/AdNauseam/wiki/Install-AdNauseam-on...

>>Spoom+ga
No (it doesn't surprise me). I figured it would be banned at some point, it is essentially click fraud but with a (noble?) purpose. And once it reaches enough critical mass to be annoying (and by annoying I mean interfering with other analytics) it would be dealt with.

I certainly resonate with the issue of advertising getting ridiculous (and love Troy Hunt's response) but don't begrudge Google their right to not help people mess with their income stream.

>>ChuckM+Am
It's important to separate the distinction between legal and illegal, and right versus wrong (morality). the two are sometimes correlated but they do not necessarily have to be. It's much easier to prove something legal or illegal because you just look at the laws on the books. It's like a mathematical proof. It doesn't have to be morally correct but it can still be legal.

The holdup are people confusing this click fraud with immoral. It seems to be very clearly illegal by the books, but in my opinion a moral and right thing to do