Taken Down by Microsoft Lawyers

So my “Bing Translate” Chrome extension got taken down by Microsoft lawyers.

It was actually quite popular (the last number of weekly users data I have was 9924), and just did one thing pretty well — you could highlight some text in Chrome, and the extension sent it to the Bing/Microsoft translation service and translated it into English.

It was in no way pretending to come from Microsoft or Bing — despite the fact that I was actually working there when I wrote it — but I suspect an automated search by Microsoft lawyers found the word “Bing” in the title and sent a takedown request to Google, who quickly took it down.

Now I changed the title and text to make no mention of Bing, and resubmitted to the Chrome Web Store, but it didn’t pass and is still not available.

I guess I could start a new extension and maybe work around it, but to be honest I can’t be bothered starting a fight with the Microsoft lawyers.

This is a real shame — not for me as I truly don’t care especially now I hardly use Chrome — but for all those users who clearly found it useful.

I can’t find a similar extension in the store — especially any sign of an official one from Microsoft — so it’s tough for the users and Microsoft missing out on the small about of traffic they were getting to help improve their translation service.

Really glad I don’t work for a lawyer-driven company any more!

First written on http://www.bravelocation.com/Taken-Down-By-Microsoft-Lawyers on July 12th, 2016