Indie Developers Outraged as Google Requires a Published Physical Address on Play Store

[dgstorm]

Something is amiss in Google-land. Google just announced a new policy which has independent developers enraged, and for good reason. As of September 30th, 2014, Google will now require all developers to publish a physical address on the Google Play Store. This is for anyone who wants to host their app on the Google Play Store, and applies to paid apps or apps with in-app purchases. You can see the details in the screen grab below.

Keep in mind that this must be a "physical address," so a Post Office Box won't work. This is wrong on so many levels, it's baffling to fathom that Google would make such a request. Google claims they are doing this to “comply with consumer protection laws,” but this hardly makes sense when you consider that eBay and iTunes are not laying out the same requirements. Could this be a situation in which Google is simply the first to comply with new laws that we don't know about?

Regardless, this is a major invasion of privacy and is a blatant security issue. This makes sense for a larger, big name developer with multiple employees in an office, but small individual developers would basically need to publish their home address. Imagine a (not so unbelievable) scenario in which a mentally ill customer decides to show up at the house of a developer, just because he happens to live in the same city.

What do you think of this terrible situation? For now indie devs should write a letter to Google, and hope that they decide to reverse course before September 30th.

Source: AndroidAuthority

 

[realged13]

Wow, that is really interesting. Surely they are not going to go through with this.

 

[gflam]

What prevents someone from putting a fake address? Like what would prevent me from putting Google's address besides the fact that they probably check their own but still why not put some bs address of some random company?

 

[xeene]

What will stop dev to submit "some" address?

 

[gflam]

Ha exactly my thoughts xeene, I vote we all just put Google's address

 

[cereal killer]

Just get a PO Box..but I understand the outrage.

 

[gflam]

Just get a PO Box..but I understand the outrage.

From the story:
"Keep in mind that this must be a "physical address," so a Post Office Box won't work."

 

[bazar6]

I have two paid themes in the Play Store (which I sadly haven't updated in a long time) and my Dev profile doesn't have an address box. It is in the Merchant Account though, not sure if that matters.

I was going to try the above recommendations, and use one of Google's addresses in Ashburn, VA (21691 Filigree Ct, Ashburn, VA 20147) which is one of their data centers.

*nevermind, I see it "begins Sept 30th". I'll check then.

 

[gflam]

True it would really suck if they did the smart thing and used your billing address automatically, wouldn't really be much of a way around that since it'd be connected to your bank account.

 

[LoneWolfArcher]

This could end badly.

 

[badtoy1986]

Why is this a bad thing. They are not going to publish this to anyone. It is simply a way for a consumer with an issue to submit a lawsuit. Without a real address who do you serve the lawsuit to? This way you can subpoena Google for the publishers address.

 

[mountainbikermark]

My brother has a small bicycle repair shop he runs out of his garage. To get bikes and parts at discount from manufacturers ans dealers he must have a physical address located in a non residential area. He got with a buddy who owns a car repair shop and rents enough space for one of his business cards to be taped to the front window for $1 per decade. Dealers and suppliers don't know the details except he uses that address for his business address even though the stuff ships somewhere else.


Sent from my LG-D801 using Tapatalk

 

[gflam]

Why is this a bad thing. They are not going to publish this to anyone. It is simply a way for a consumer with an issue to submit a lawsuit. Without a real address who do you serve the lawsuit to? This way you can subpoena Google for the publishers address.

It says in the screen grab "After you've added an address, it will be available on your apps detail page to all users on Google Play"

The detail page is what everyone sees, sounds to me like they're publishing it to everyone and that's why it's a bad thing.

 

[dgstorm]

Just get a PO Box..but I understand the outrage.

@cereal killer... you need to actually read the whole story brutha!

It specifically points out that a PO Box won't work. You have to provide a "physical" address.

Also, @badtoy1986... you also must have missed in the story where it explains that the address will be seen by all Google Play users.

 

[Vepaot]

I can understand needing your address tied to your account for all sorts of legal reasons...but having it known publicly is pushing the envelop. I really don't think this is going to go through, the backlash for Google will be pretty huge.