The original post: /r/piracy by /u/Littux on 2024-10-02 09:06:02.
Seems like people are making it seem more serious than it is. Still, they almost made most of their users angry
Mozilla says that it has reviewed the extension and found violations. The following claims were made:
• The extension is not asking for consent for data collecting.
• The extension contains "minified, concatenated or otherwise machine-generated code".
• There is no privacy policy.
As a consequence, Mozilla disabled the extension on the Firefox Add-ons Store.
Raymond Hill refuted all three claims that Mozilla made on the GitHub repository stating that the extension is not collecting any data, that there is no minified code in uBlock Origin Lite, and that there is a privacy policy.
He admitted further that he does not "have the time or motivation to spend time on this nonsense" and won't react to the allegations made or appeal the decision.
In a follow-up, Hill criticized the "nonsensical and hostile review process" that put added burden on developers. Mozilla disabled all versions of the extension except for the very first one. It still flagged the extension for the very same reasons, but nevertheless decided to keep the outdated version up.
Mozilla realizes its blunder, but it seems too late
Mozilla contacted Hill a few days later, likely after the thing blew up everywhere, stating that the "previous decision was incorrect" and that the extension has been restored.
The organization issued an apology for the "mistake" and recommended to Hill to reach out whenever he has questions or concerns about a review.
Hill decided to go ahead with the plan to self-host the extension. He removed the extension from Mozilla's Add-ons repository as a consequence.
When you search for uBlock Origin Lite, you won't get the extension returned anymore.
It remains to be seen if the two parties will come closer together again or if this breakup will be permanent.