PayPal Honey extension has again "featured" flag in Chrome web store

What are the odds that it’s not a conspiracy but simply someone at Google thinking it’s a brand they heard of and adding the tag? Or is that not how it works?

I think it’s almost always paid

Not quite, one has to nominate their extension/apply for it(fill a form, via the dev support centre)[0], for the CWS team to then review it, where after 3-4 weeks they usually grant it - you mainly have to have a "good" listing and "follow best practices" [1]. You can only apply once every 6 months.

In my opinion, either mass reporting, or (unlikely) a manual decision caused them to lose it. And after a while Honey likely applied again, where the reviewer was possibly unaware of past events. Or they were but it's not relevant to the review process. (Having millions of users may have played a part, the bigger exts might be treated differently, though I doubt it). Google doesn't really pay much mind to these things, from what I've seen.

[0] I'm pretty sure there's a dev doc somewhere with this

[1] https://developer.chrome.com/docs/webstore/discovery#feature...

See sibling comment, it's genuinely just a form you fill in, and if you pass the (arguably low) Store standards, you'll get it. Extensions with ~200 users have them.

Interesting, thanks for the information. With it in mind, I think (as you said) someone approved it without giving it much thought. Honey is a very well-known brand, but it's mostly technologists (and only some) who know about the recent scandal.

Yep - totally agree. Time will also be in their favour, as people forget/stop caring.