Google announced today that it is shutting down paid Chrome extensions offered on the Chrome Web Store. From now that developers who are trying to monetize their extensions will have to do so with other payment-handling systems.
As of Monday, developers can no longer make new paid extensions, according to Google — though that’s cementing a policy that has already been in place since March. And that policy follows a temporary suspension of publishing paid extensions in January after Google noticed an uptick in fraudulent transactions that aim[ed] to exploit users.
Google will gradually phase out other functionality over the coming months, and on February 1st, Google says that existing extensions can no longer charge customers using the Chrome Web Store’s payments system.
In April Google updated a number of policy to reduce spam extensions, including banning multiple extensions that do the same thing, not allowing developers to manipulate reviews to try to get better placement for their extension, and forbidding extensions that abuse notifications and more.
