I'm all for enforcing strong privacy rules, in fact, I stopped using PB very quickly after trying it for the first time, because of the _feeling_ of a lack of privacy/security it gave me (based on no actual evidence), so I'm not defending PB.

That said, calling Google heavy handed is an understatement, and there have been several cases which have made it clear that kicking up a fuss online and being big enough to get some attention is the only means for recourse.

I didn't call it 'heavy handed'. I'm just correcting your assertion that PB didn't have unnecessary and overly-broad permissions. This is in their writeup.

This might be okay as long as you give clear and specific points to correct.

But Google just said "you're asking too much permissions". After the first fixes the extension got rejected again, without explanation.

I'm not really trying to re-litigate the whole PB thing. It's just not the case that they got dinged for nothing which is what the comment I replied to was suggesting.

And the other (I think more important) point was that we know even less about whatever happened to Kozmos.

Oh, I understand your point. I was calling Google heavy handed.