Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Friday September 19 2014, @04:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the where-you-at? dept.

The Developer Console for the Google Play Store has a notification that from the 30th September, all listing will require a physical address to be shown on the app details page. The notification states:

Add a physical contact address Beginning September 30, 2014, you need to add a physical address to your Settings page. After you've added an address, it will be available on your app's detail page to all users on Google Play. If your physical address changes, make sure to update your information on your Settings page.

If you have paid apps or apps with in-app purchases, it's mandatory to provide a physical address where you can be contacted, as you are the seller of that content, to comply with with consumer protection laws. If you don't provide a physical address on your account, it may result in your apps being removed from the Play Store.

Thus far there have been no explanation for the requirement, with some speculation that it may be to satisfy a legal requirement for merchants to provide a physical address, with some concerned about how it could impact independent developers.

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @07:31AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @07:31AM (#95782)

    If it is not Google who sells the app, then how is it justified they get a share of the sales money? They offer that stuff on the web page, they process the payment, so they are the seller. Simple as that.

    And if it is really a legal requirement that the physical address is given, I'm sure it would be sufficient if it would only be accessible after a formal request to Google. After all, if you really have a case, that should not be much hassle; OTOH the fact that you'd explicitly have to contact Google (and therefore there would exist an explicit record that you requested that address) should vastly reduce the probability of misuse of that data.