Program Policies
The Chrome Web Store is committed to providing a safe and secure environment for users, built on trust and transparency. For these reasons, the Chrome Web Store requires all developers to comply with both the Developer Program Policies listed below, and the Developer Agreement. When your extension is reviewed by Google, these policies act as a guiding principle for those reviews. These policies apply to the entire user experience of your application/extension/theme – including any marketing materials, user generated content, ads, landing pages, etc – unless otherwise noted.
Chrome Web Store Principles
The Chrome Web Store is a premier platform where users can discover and install extensions that are high-quality, trusted, and safe. Chrome strives to reflect the diversity of its developers and users, but will robustly curate the products in the store to ensure a positive experience. As we enhance and improve upon the Chrome Web Store experience, we are guided by the following core principles:
Be Safe
We strive to make the Chrome Web Store a safe and trusted environment for developers and users. This means that we will remove extensions that pose security threats, access data beyond what is necessary to implement their functions, appear to take advantage of users, encourage harm or hate speech, or otherwise abuse the Store system and network.
Be Honest
Building and maintaining user trust in the Chrome Web Store is paramount, which means we set a high bar for developer transparency. All functionalities of extensions should be clearly disclosed to the user, with no surprises. This means we will remove extensions which appear to deceive or mislead users, enable dishonest behavior, or utilize clickbaity functionality to artificially grow their distribution.
Be Useful
Extensions in the Store must provide experiences that are educational, informative, entertaining, inclusive, and that result in a positive user experience. We will remove extensions that appear to provide little to no utility to users, or do not provide the reasonably expected functionality. Chrome will also strive to provide useful tools to developers to help encourage innovation.
Best Practices and Guidelines
To help ensure the best experience for both users and developers, please review the below guidelines before submitting your extension to the Chrome Web Store. Following all of these guidelines doesn’t mean your extension will be automatically approved, but they will help you to avoid common mistakes that often delay the review process.
Fostering a Safe Ecosystem
The Chrome Web Store is committed to providing a safe and secure environment for users. Extensions which contain objectionable content or place users at risk are strictly prohibited.
Protecting User Privacy
We want to make sure users feel confident that the products they find in the Chrome Web Store are safe, transparent, and prioritize user privacy. Integrating these considerations within your product's design is critical.
Ensuring Responsible Marketing and Monetization
Extensions must be marketed responsibly. When developers copy someone else's work or deceive users, it hurts users and the developer community. Don't rely on misleading behavior or unfair use of other people's work.
Building Quality Products
Developers are critical partners in maintaining a great user experience in the Chrome Web Store. Your extensions should include features, content, and UI that provide unique value to the Chrome Web Store. At a minimum, extensions should provide users with a basic degree of functionality and a respectful user experience. We may reject extensions unless they provide a unique, high-quality experience. Spamming the store may lead to your removal as a developer from the Chrome web Store.
Technical Requirements
In addition to compliance with the policies set out elsewhere in the Developer Program Policies, extensions must follow certain technical guidelines to ensure a positive user experience.
Enforcement
Learn more about how our policies apply, how we enforce our policies, and how you can manage policy violations.