1043017 - Blocklist enformation add-on

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Toolkit :: Blocklist Policy Requests, defect)

Description

[Kris Maglione [:kmag]]

Crossrider add-on silently installed by WinAmp installer on c|net. Users currently only number in the hundreds, but are all silent installs.

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Comment 1

[Shmueli Ahdut]

Hello Kris,

We had been notified of this thread through bugzilla subscription and had blocked this extension on our end as well and removed all existing code.

On top of this we had contacted the developer after the block and had warned him that if we will see this again we will ban him completely from our platform.

Shmueli - Crossrider

Comment 2

[Jorge Villalobos [:jorgev] (he/him)]

Does that mean that it is safe to blocklist that ID since the add-on doesn't do anything anymore?

Comment 3

[Kris Maglione [:kmag]]

I've tested this add-on, I'm not satisfied that this add-on has been blocked per the mechanism that we discussed.

Regardless, I don't think that it's appropriate to rely on third-party blocking mechanisms in cases like this. It might be acceptable large-scale, to avoid a blanket block of this ID pattern, but in specific cases like this, we should use our normal blocklisting process.

Comment 4

[Jorge Villalobos [:jorgev] (he/him)]

I agree. If Crossrider's policy is to block these add-ons right away, I don't see why it shouldn't be ours as well. I find it confusing that users will end up with a non-functional entry, and it's unclear to me if any of this is communicated to them.

Blocked: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/blocked/i682