Google Play store requires devs to provide physical address, will be viewable by everyone

I'm irritated and yet, I'm not gonna protest, or drop Android, or try to fight the system by using a bogus address. My little startup is a legit business which means, playing by the rules. So, yesterday, I went to Mail Depot (like a UPS Store), and rented a mailbox. The good news is it's a real, physical address - which meets ALL of Google's requirements. The bad news, is it's $200/year (with a 50% discount the first 12 months).

Even though Gigi Games can afford it, it's still a crappy decision by Google.

Gigi

 

I suppose it depends on your goals. Google's position is that charging for apps implies you're running a business, so they want us to play by big-boy rules - which means taxes, business registration, and a physical address. Sure, I could save $50-$100 here or there by skipping a few steps, until the day it BITES back!

Gigi

 

This is a bit of straw man argument. There is a legit business called a sole proprietor that does not require a lot of those filings and some of those filings might be dependent upon local / state/ city/ county/ country wide laws depending on your locality.

Accusing people of being fake who have small businesses and following the laws where they live is misleading.

Requiring that a vendor of non-physical goods, through a virtual store front, that may be selling to people around the world (I know I sure do) disclose their "physical" address just doesn't hold much water in the form of reasoning. Any address the business may be legitimately contacted at should be sufficient.

 

True, if you're going to publish on the Play store, you might as well abide by the new requirements. Most people probably can afford the cost of renting a box like you did, even if it's an unnecessary expense. I just think it's a dumb idea on Google's part that's not going to help any of their problems curating the Play store.

 

Who says it's about the Play store? These are people literally in the business of information interchange, so they could want it for something else.

 

And what's to stop you providing a fake physical address, will they even validate it? I doubt it.

 

They could possibly verify by the tax information you have to provide to get a payout from a Merchant account. Not sure how it's verified in other countries, but US accounts are verified through IRS data.

 

Assume for a moment that you do get away with a fake address. What happens when there is a problem with your account and the fake address is exposed? You may loose your Google account, you may loose your credibility, and you will certainly loose any chance to fix the problem itself as Google can just say you violated their terms and they no longer have to help you.

Even if you don't ever have a problem with your account, what about when some internet hater decides to expose the fact that you are using a fake address just to cause you harm? Or what happens when someone just accuses you of that and Google wants you to prove them wrong?

I agree with Gigi. Better to get a mailbox or other valid business address to use rather than risking this all biting you in the rear later. One should never take unnecessary risk with your business just to safe a few dollars, especially when it could cost you a lot more in the end.

 

It's not about saving a few dollars, it's about putting yourself at risk of..

a.) People breaking into your home/business and stealing your computers and your game's source code
b.) If your game is popular, you are most likely making some good money, this can be used against you or your family.
c.) If someone rage quits your game and is having a bad day, and they decide to go postal and blame it all on you, they know where you live or work and can cause you physical harm.

I'm sure none of those above points are meant to be taken lightly.
I'm mostly worried about point a to be honest, as b and c however possible, are unlikely.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I will be using my accountants physical address, as I do for all other business correspondence. But to be honest I think you're better off with a 'fake' address than a real home or business address if you have no other option.

 

But you're already "at risk" of those things.

Besides, I don't see how getting a mail box increases the risk of those things. Someone can pick any mail box (or house!), "go postal", then blame it own the owner of the mailbox or the occupant of the house as it is. Why does being associated with an app and/or Google Play account change any of that?

I mean, I'm really not understanding the "risk" some people seem to be attaching to this. Yes, there are freak occurrences with app developers, but is it any more common than freak occurrences amongst non-app-developers? Of all the break ins that occur, how many of them are predicated upon an address being publicly displayed? If you get successful enough at anything to make you a target then you should assume that people know your address anyway.

And also, how many other ways is your address already available to other people? Every time you fill in a government form it probably goes past several people, same at your doctor's office, anyone who's employed you (or processed any paperwork to do with said employment) has your address, so does your phone/internet/cable TV/water/electricity/phone companies, you give it out any time you've ordered food in or got groceries delivered...

Do you hide in fear from door to door sales people? They not only know your address but have actually met you. You're at risk, man!

I'm not saying that there's no risk here, or that the decision behind this is necessarily a good one for us. But I do think that some of the reasoning against it is going a little far.

 

But A or at least B and C will already happen. When you sell your game each receipt has your address so extortion guys can just buy all the popular games and start going by the list. For C the rage guy has already bought your game and knows the details.

 

Yes, but now you're taking risk and multiplying it by 10 because your address is plainly available now to waaay more people.

 

It's less fear, and more, 'if I ignore them they'll go away.' Unfortunately, that may or may not work for the element that those of us arguing against this policy are concerned about. Usually, that element is deterred by making it incredibly inconvenient for them to do what they want to to you. (Locked doors are actually one of the best deterrents, funny enough.)

 

Then why make it public? I'm sure most devs wouldn't have a problem giving them this information otherwise.

 

Google does not want to work as a seller and in your previous link was the probably reason for the change explained which was also the one we speculated here before it.

"EU consumer protection law requirements"

 

Multiplying what by 10?

For this to cause any increase in risk at all you have to be assuming that there are people willing and able to do others harm, who are put off solely by not being bothered/able to find out addresses (which are unfortunately not that hard to find as it is).

As recent events demonstrate, it sucks that addresses are so easy to get a hold of and make public. On the other hand, as those same recent events demonstrate, there's already nothing to stop that as it is.

 

Yes they are...

 

Awful idea. For one thing, as people have said, lots of devs don't like the idea and will give false addresses. From then, well if Google have the manpower and resources to track people down to their real addresses to tell them off then they have the manpower and resources to filter out the overwhelming amount of rubbish on the store, which is surely the main problem we all want addressing?
Surely a two-tier system is in order, make under say $10,000 a year (almost everyone with a Google dev account!) and qualify as a basic home based developer with no business premises, anything more and you require full business status.

 

It has nothing to do with how much you earn or are you a individual or a company, it's about laws and regulations as you are working as a seller, taxes and other stuff is involved and you are responsible to provide detailed support info.

I got a localized mail today from Google that they have changed the Google Play distribution agreement and one of changed things is just for this.

3.6 You Support Your Product. Buyers are instructed to contact the developer concerning any defects or performance issues in applications downloaded and installed from the Google Play Store. You will be solely responsible for, and Google will have no responsibility to undertake or handle, support and maintenance of your Products and any complaints about your Products. You must supply and maintain valid and accurate contact information that will be displayed in each application detail page on the Store and made available to users for customer support and legal purposes. For paid Products or in-app transactions, you must respond to customer support inquiries within three (3) working days, and within 24 hours to any support or Product concerns stated to be urgent by Google. Failure to provide adequate information or support for your Products may result in low Product ratings, less prominent product exposure, low sales, billing disputes or removal from the Store.

BTW like been said faking the address will violate Google agreements and would probably result in permanent ban in all Google services. Also remember that you are a seller in Google Play and responsible for everything so it can be a criminal offense to provide fake legal contact info for customers in some countries.

 

I can see how the system would require your details to be on their system for taxes and the like, I just can't see any benefit of printing your address for all to see. Also, I assume..
If you have paid apps or apps with in-app purchases, it's mandatory to provide a physical address where you can be contacted
means that developers supplying free games are exempt? Seems to be aimed at monetized apps only, unless I'm missing some more detail.

 

Its not about benefit but like I said some places require by law that ie. seller info is visible and I don't think those laws were made with digital sales in mind but they apply to everything.

And yes, if you are not acting as a seller you don't need to provide the info visible to everyone. This means you can just do ad supported apps as its not a seller-customer interaction and I think many apps will just move more to this.

 

At least It'll be easier to take out the competition.

Make an app like mine.. expect a visitor.

 

My concern is that crazy people will do crazy things once they know your physical address. Even if you write a great game and do an excellent job supporting it, there will be crazy people who will want to harm you if your game is popular. Crazy people tend to lash out at successful people. Giving everybody in the world your physical address means the crazy people will definitely know where you live. This is a dangerous decision by Google.

I understand requiring a registered business to list their physical address, but I disagree with requiring indie devs to give their physical address since that will often be their family's home address. I guess this means every indie devs needs to incur the cost of renting a mailbox, which is wasteful but needed now for safety.

 

Those are not public records in Canada.

It isn't just "internet crazies". My day job is shipping/trucking software and during the last major trucking/border/port strike multiple angry drivers shot up some of our clients' offices.

I have family and friends in other jobs (some government, some not) whose personal vehicles have been shot up at home and bricks tossed in the window -- all related to their information being unnecessarily revealed. There are certain parts of my privacy that are to be valued. All legitimate work.

It is entirely unnecessary for my home address to be made public. It's a !@#$ move by Google, and their legal team should know better.

Until you've been shook up, no one has a clue what it's like to lose your home. Not your house, but your home. Try that once, and then come and tell us it isn't a big deal to have your private residence made public.

It's also not a lot of fun when you have to explain that there is no such thing as a "harmless" family photo with a relative... that wedding photos can never be shared with friends on Facebook. Now multiply that by a larger audience because you're trying to start doing something publicly. It's not my fault friends and relatives are in such a position that I have to protect my location. I shouldn't be the one penalized for it.

Effing Google. They had better allow for PO Boxes.

 

Well this has already been possible relatively easy and haven't seen any news of devs getting killed or mugged cause they made a successful game. Now it will be just slightly easier or cheaper to get the info.

It has not been said anywhere to be registered business? From agreement: "3.3 You are the merchant of record for Products you sell through the Store." and from the notification: "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 consumer protection laws."

You are doing business in the eyes of laws, consumer rights and etc. and your sales include taxes and other costs to end user. It does not matter if you are a individual or a company. Google Play is like a digital shopping mall where you run your "store" and are responsible for everything.



Generally speaking here... many of you guys seem think here that your are not doing "serious business" or any business but just randomly selling few cups of lemonade to strangers in a street corner as a hobby and don't want to be bothered with bureaucratic crap

BTW I guess some of you guys heard that Google had to pay around 20 million dollars of IAP refunds not too long ago. Guess who probably has to pay for them from now on after recent changes in the agreement and support things?

edit: I don't like the change either...

 

It's not fun when people set up mobile contracts in your name and rack up tens of thousands, then you have to go through the agonising process of setting all the records straight.

It's not a fantastic move, it's bad enough with the likes of companies house pasting your director details all over the web.

 

First I need Google to approve paid apps, and merchant account in my country, then I can worry about this. But I don't like it at all. Even tho not even people who know me can find me with my stupid address.

It only hurts honest developers, it doesn't help fight scammers at all, because if they're scamming they sure as hell won't use a legit address anyway. Unless the purpose of this isn't to fight scam apps, but is another one of Google's moves to control and monitor us all.

 

Glad I'm not into mobile game development. I've thought about tinkering around just for fun but this is insane in my opinion. I cannot see any reason as a game player to have the personal residential address of developers making games. I have bought many MANY games on the PC over the years and never did I need to know where the person lived. A website with a support page, an email for contact were sufficient. This all makes no sense to me whatsoever. If I were ever to consider playstore mobile development this has turned me off to it even more.

On the bright side for those of you continuing development you will likely have much less competition going forward. Maybe that is what this is really about... filtering out the hobbyists working from home.

 

This only affects Google Play as pretty much all the other stores work as a seller for you. Google Play or Android is not the best platform anyways in terms of dev costs and income. The fragmentation is massive and people don't like to pay.

 

I just did some searching and found no consumer protection laws that require a physical address and *NOT* a PO Box. Maybe I missed them, but I'm confident they don't apply in the USA, at least. The CAN-SPAM act requires a "physical address" but goes on to say that it *can* be a PO Box.

At best, Google is taking the laws in 1 area and applying them to the entire world.

At worst, they've made up some unreasonable requirements and applied them to the entire world.

 

I'm also pretty sure they don't apply in the USA but I do know that many countries have such laws or similar for the info requirement, at least most of the EU member countries. I quickly checked Finnish law for this cause its easy to find the info and here is some of it google-translated as example:

"Before the home or distance contracts, the consumer must provide the following information:

1) The consumption of the main characteristics of the asset to the extent that is appropriate in light of a commodity and used in the message;

2) The name of the trader;

3) the geographical address of the trader is established, and, if the trader is acting as a business agent or representative of his client's name and geographic address;

4) The business telephone number, fax number and email address, if they are available;

5) The business of the establishment, the geographical address, where the consumer can complain if the address differs from the address referred to in paragraph 3, and, if the trader is acting as a business agent or servant, the same information that his client;"

I think Google is just skipping corners and making it mandatory for everyone not only cause of the laws but also he support and refund issues there has been recently.

edit: actually it does not matter if the seller is from USA, Japan or from EU as buyers laws are applied. So that means if you don't want your details given you don't sell to EU countries or any other country that has similar laws. Google might add such option in future sine they did the VAT change too. This applies to everyone in the world:

https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/138000?rd=1&hl=en-GB

 

I don't much like it as but I much prefer it to providing a telephone number as a telephone number is just too easy to be used to harass someone practically free.

It costs real money to send out material to physical addresses and even with that cost; I've noticed donating a small amount monthly has caused my mailbox to received several unsolicited charity requests per month from other charities after the 3 charities I'm already donating to betrayed me and sold my contact information and the fact that I donate to 3rd party data warehouses.

I once donated a one time $5 to a charity (Feed the Children) and my mailbox was flooded for months with packages of postcards of the sort you send for greeting to others costing far more than $5 trying to get me to donate more. I'm like they can't be serious. I could eat and have eat for 10 days with $5; I can't imagine how much a person in a poor country could buy to eat with $5. Are they trying to feed them or buy each of them a mansion like the head of that charity lives in?

But I'm rambling, the new usage license will help get rid of some of the lower echelons of criminal and spam apps on Google Play.

And with all that said, businesses with big money, organized crime, and very rich people often use addresses that are not actually where they are physically located for reasons of avoiding taxes or arrest in the case of criminals. Sometimes for reasons of privacy in the case of the famous but that's not really a valid reason.

 

What.

 

I kept a UPS address for a long time in Plano, TX when I lived in Switzerland and the US government finally made UPS drop my mailbox even though I was a US citizen. Usage of P.O. Boxes and false physical address is tightening up due to criminal activity, especially drug trafficking.

 

Quite easy if you like dried beans.

 

If that's true you need to figure out another line of work really until the situation is dealt with legally and sanely.

It's quite easy to buy that information in the US already at any rate. There are even sites like that in Switzerland now of all places. I know because I bought mine and a friend's "private" information in USA. Physical addresses are public records, ownership of yearly taxable properties are public records, and criminal records are public records. It's required by law that this information is kept and made public. At the convenient store in the US they actually sell magazines filled with criminal records and mug shots and I'm like "Ew, who'd want to read through that sad state of affairs?!" Apparently alot of people tired of crime, drugs, violence, and criminals would. I had to write a company and tell them that the man with the past criminal conviction that lived at the house I bought no longer lives there.

They difference now is that computers have made it easy for businesses to centralized collection of this data and sell it. Abandoning the internet will simply make you ignorant to how pervasive it is but they still gather, sell, and publish it.

FB has privacy options. Foremost is don't wantonly 'friend' strangers and setting your other settings to suit you and your friends.

Hiding is not the solution but don't keep sticking your hand on a hot stove. What have I done that I should have to hide? Why isn't the executive, legislative, and judicial branches doing the job they were created to do and adjusting appropriately to modern technology at the same time? e.g. Law enforcement shouldn't be sitting in cruisers handing out traffic tickets when traffic surveillance systems can do the job more accurately and without any possibility of saying the cop used some type of profiling to write the citation. No, the surveillance system, the traffic laws, and the laws of physics determined whether to issue a ticket. They should be investigating crime and traveling the beat. Law enforcement and unblinking and unwavering video surveillance in public places is needed, not hiding.

 

Agreed @goat. I'll be weighing my options and requirements due to this. Just not liking that it's so blatantly stupid of Google, let alone for edge cases.

 

I have no problem with giving Google my real actual contact information as a seller... BUT I would not want my personal address plastered out there for all to see. I think it's ridiculous. And it's all down to European business privacy laws... that now effect me even though I'm a loong way away from Europe. I think a better option would be to give people the choice of which market they want to sell in and then let them decide if those local laws and requirements are worth it to them on a per-region basis.

I had a similar experience with mailChimp which I was all set on using for email newsletters until I found that you are REQUIRED to put in your physical address on all sent emails, because of these same European laws. Pfft! Really? No thanks!

If I were running a business with a physical address then none of this would matter to me... but I work from home and this now becomes not an issue of business transparency but one of personal privacy, not just for me but for my family as well. I'll eventually have to go out and get a PO Box as well like others have said.

I understand what @goat is saying about public records and the information already being out there, and it's all true, so perhaps this is more an emotional response than a logical response. But it's still a valid response and these shouldn't be discounted... logic isn't the be-all of everything.

Eventually, for better or worse, there probably won't be a thing such as "privacy" as we understand it today. But until then I'd like to hold on to it a little

 

Does anyone know the exact date that this goes into effect (ie, when they pull your app if you haven't provided a physical address)? The new Developer Agreement (that I assume contains the new legal mumbo jumbo about providing an address) says I have 24 days left to accept but I've also frequently heard 9/30 as a deadline.

Also, probably a stupid question, but will my app still be playable by people who have already downloaded once they do pull it?

 

Two different things. You have total of 30 days to accept the new agreemeent that includes a bunch of things. You have to have address filled by 9/30 if you have any paid apps.

 

For me it's pretty simple - would the CEO of Google want his personal home address shown on the Google home page? Pretty sure that'd be a no, for the same reasons that devs wouldn't want their personal addresses shown publicly. Sure it might make devs a little bit more responsible with what they release, but there will ALWAYS be haters. Of everything. Post a cat picture on the internet and you'll have a few odd idiots flaming at you for something. Gamers can be just as bad. Forcing people to resort to paid mail boxes is pretty bad imo. Like most people I'd be fine with providing a real address for Google's eyes only, but not to the public.

 

I don't really understand that point of the consumer protection laws in question in the first place. If you haven't purchased anything from me, then you aren't a consumer of my goods. If you have purchased something, then you've already got access to my address. Who does it protect to let everyone see your address?

 

Hell, Google themselves are pretty shifty themselves in terms of where their company is legally "located." They are one of the many Delaware tax-haven corporations that officially "establish" themselves there even though they are obviously not operating from that state in the least.
Apples and oranges, I know, but I can't help but think it's ironic that they won't allow home-based companies to establish a PO box for contact information when they themselves use the same principal to avoid paying taxes.

 

I'm pretty sure he's so high up that it's hard for him to imagine being a small business owner, let alone an indie developer working out of their garage. The idea that you'd use your home address as a business address is probably something he never considers.