this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2023
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"Actors who are asking me to add some tracking code are mostly interested in reselling users' data," Anashkin said. "Actors who want to purchase it outright will stuff it with malware depending on their level of greed: hijacking affiliate links, tampering with search results, showing popups with shady websites, etc."

Anashkin's experience appears to be fairly common. Developers have discussed these solicitations in online forums and several have written blog posts about selling extensions or partnership offers.

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[–] EROLoLICON@kbin.social 132 points 1 year ago

It happened to the original uBlock and then the developer made uBlock Origin.

[–] unscholarly_source@lemmy.ca 123 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Been spending the past little while reading the documented offers he gets.

I feel sick to my stomach.

[–] Doombot1 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wowza. That’s terrible. Thank goodness he hasn’t sold out; I love hoverzoom. If only my freaking work’s IT wouldn’t’ve banned extensions 🙃

[–] Llewellyn@lemmy.ml 33 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Now you understand why your IT do that.

[–] lolgcat@lemmy.ml 24 points 1 year ago

Props to Oleg/hoverzoom for maintaining and updating this list for all to read. It's my first time seeing any document of this kind really. Quiet chilling

[–] Snowcano@startrek.website 13 points 1 year ago

Jesus… it is time to seriously re-evaluate and pare back the extensions I use. Ugh.

[–] salient_one@lemmy.villa-straylight.social 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What a depressing read, thank you!

[–] unscholarly_source@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 year ago

You are welcome ☺️.

[–] celmit@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 year ago

1/25/2021

We'd love to have redacted sponsor Hover Zoom+ in a similar manner to how we're partnering with Dark Reader. See attached for how that partnership has come to life, but we're honestly super flexible on implementation. We'd essentially love to pay you in exchange for helping us drive users to redacted.

So wtf does this mean? Is Dark Reader hammered as of 2021?

[–] argv_minus_one 2 points 1 year ago

Those are some insultingly low offers, considering they want to malwareify (that's totally a word now) hundreds of thousands of innocent people.

[–] spark947@lemm.ee 46 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They need to name and shame the people reaching out. They keep reacting them.

[–] zwekihoyy@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 year ago (3 children)

this is how you burn potential for future relationships

[–] Numuruzero@lemmy.dbzer0.com 37 points 1 year ago

Seems like a good deal if it proactively convinces bad actors to stop from reaching out

[–] argv_minus_one 4 points 1 year ago

Why would I want to have future relationships with shameless criminals?

[–] GreenMario@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

In other words, "retirement fund" or wasn't offered enough.

[–] GreenMario@lemm.ee 44 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The trick is to sell it at a high price and immediately fork. Get paid and fuck off.

Then do it again and again and again. Infinite money glitch. Don't worry about getting sued after a bit you'll be rich enough to be immune from prosecution.

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 44 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I get these offers almost daily for my Chrome extension, and have done for years. I couldn't do it to the users, but they wouldn't be making the offers if some people weren't accepting.

[–] altima_neo@lemmy.zip 43 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The day he sells out, I'm gonna be like, "you were the chosen one, Anashkin"

[–] No_Eponym@lemmy.ca 15 points 1 year ago

"You were to bring visibility to small text, not leave it under ad ID-targeted popups!"

[–] QuazarOmega@lemy.lol 40 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The alternate universe where Anashkin doesn't fall for the dark side

[–] jherazob 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We must ask him his opinions on sand

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 year ago

!starwarsmemes@lemmy.world

[–] RIPandTERROR@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] QuazarOmega@lemy.lol 3 points 1 year ago

Shkinwalker

[–] Mikina@programming.dev 29 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

That's why I'm avoiding any extension I know I really don't need.

I've already burned myself once, when Nano Defender sold out and turned into a cookie-stealing malware. By the time it was one of few adblockers that were not being blocked by adblock killers. They've pushed a malware update through the Chrome web store, and started exploiting stolen cookies immediately.

It was a difficult day, where I had to explain to few of my exes that someone hacked their Instagram account due to an ad-blocker I've set up for them when we were dating few years ago.

[–] Tosonana@lemdit.com 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Great suspender, ublock (not origin) and some other extensions that i cannot think of have fallen to buyouts

[–] alansuspect@aussie.zone 3 points 1 year ago

Damn I'd forgotten all about the great suspender!

[–] monobot@lemmy.ml 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes, criminal activity is everywhere, problem is we haven't yet forbid selling of users data.

[–] N4CHEM@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 year ago

And it's very unlikely to happen, since our governments are very interested in spying us / buying our data.

[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 13 points 1 year ago

And now, please make the mental leap to overly-large Lemmy instances...

[–] RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz 10 points 1 year ago

Hover Zoom+

Damn I'm using that. I guess the article means he hasn't sold out yet though.

[–] ChanchoManco@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago

Do anyone knows if in Firefox is the same situation, or if they take some actions when a extension changes hands?