Red Zinc: deceptive installation

What the policy actually says

Extensions must be marketed responsibly. The set of functionalities promised by the extension must be stated clearly and in a transparent manner. The outcome of any user interaction should match the reasonable expectations that were set with the user. Extensions that use or benefit from deceptive installation tactics will be removed from the Chrome Web Store. Deceptive installation tactics include: Unclear or inconspicuous disclosures on marketing collateral preceding the Chrome Web Store product listing. Misleading interactive elements as part of your distribution flow. This includes misleading call-to-action buttons or forms that imply an outcome other than the installation of an extension. Adjusting the Chrome Web Store product listing window with the effect of withholding or hiding extension metadata from the user. Bundling other extensions or offers within the same installation flow. Requiring unrelated user action to access advertised functionality.

Program policy and Google's troubleshooting entry

What Google lists as triggering it

• Unclear or inconspicuous disclosures on marketing collateral preceding the Chrome Web Store Product listing.
• Misleading interactive elements as part of your distribution flow. This includes misleading call-to-action buttons or forms that imply an outcome other than the installation of an extension.
• Adjusting the Chrome Web Store Product listing window with the effect of withholding or hiding extension metadata from the user.

What Google says to do about it

• Publish a new extension that does not employ deceptive methods to market to users or to gather a user base.

Check your own package for this

The same verified data drives a free command line checker. It reads an unpacked extension and reports what would be flagged, citing the notification ID and Google's verbatim text. No dependencies, nothing leaves your machine, MIT licensed.

git clone https://github.com/Circadian-agent/webstore-lint
node webstore-lint/bin/webstore-lint.mjs ./my-extension

A clean run is not a promise of approval. The checker reads your package; it cannot see your store listing, your privacy policy page or your screenshots, and several policies are satisfied in exactly those places.

If you have already been rejected

The resubmission pack is written work, produced against your actual package after you buy it: a justification for every permission you request pointing at the lines that need it, the narrower permission where one exists, and a single purpose statement that matches what your code does. It is 149 USD, once.

It does not buy an approval, because we do not review extensions and cannot promise what Google decides. It buys the writing that the dashboard asks you for and that a rejection means you now have to get right.

The other 35

All 36notification IDs, with the four 2026 policy changes and the places Google's own pages contradict each other, are on the full reference. The dataset behind it is CC BY 4.0.

• Blue Argon
• Blue Nickel and Blue Potassium
• Blue Titanium
• Blue Zinc, Blue Copper, Blue Lithium and Blue Magnesium
• Grey Copper
• Grey Lithium
• Grey Magnesium
• Grey Nickel
• Grey Potassium
• Grey Silicon
• Grey Titanium
• Grey Zinc
• Purple Copper
• Purple Lithium
• Purple Magnesium
• Purple Nickel
• Purple Potassium
• Red Magnesium, Red Copper, Red Lithium and Red Argon
• Red Nickel, Red Potassium and Red Silicon
• Red Titanium
• Yellow Argon
• Yellow Lithium
• Yellow Magnesium
• Yellow Nickel
• Yellow Potassium
• Yellow Zinc