Google Play's new address policy

Justin Meisse

I heard some indie devs discussing this recently, basically by Sept 30th you must display your physical mailing address on your app page, no P.O. Boxes allowed. This is going to be a disaster.

Google Play's Address Policy: Bad for Indie Devs, Bad for Android

ZacD

While I do think the market place is a bit flooded, and I'd like to see clones and first time projects filtered out a bit more, this is definitely a step in the wrong direction. People are probably going to have to use businesses or services that lease you a fake address.

iconoplast

ZacD wrote: »

People are probably going to have to use businesses or services that lease you a fake address.

A lot of private P.O. Box-esque services read as if they're a physical address. Instead of "Box (foo)" in the address you use "#(foo)". Since it's impossible to tell the difference between that and, for example, an apartment, it can't be blocked or automatically detected without a database of every company offering that and every address they use.

Justin Meisse

phew, good thing Google doesn't have a huge database of....... oh wait

Hopefully you're right but it still sucks for indie devs, as if they need an extra monthly expense.

iconoplast

Yeah, I was trying not to take that thought to its inevitable conclusion. There's still not a good way to do it without hitting false positives. While that doesn't necessarily stop them, I don't think the extra ill will on the issue would be worth it, both from trying to block that sort of address or from inadvertently blocking real addresses.

It does still absolutely suck, and it's totally ... well, there are words I prefer not to use in public. Let's just say that I'm familiar with having to fight to not expose my address, and I am at best very irritated every time I have to do it. I can imagine scenarios as to why people at Google thought this idea was great. It's also clear that none of them thought it through (or if some did, they were ignored).

Related note for if you're in a situation where you need your address to stay really private, such as knowing that an army of trolls is about to descend on you: At least in the US, voter rolls, complete with address and SSN if included, can be accessed at local public libraries. Now, to do that the person has to know how to use microfiche, so you're probably safe from anyone under 30. Other than that, though, it's a good idea to check to see if you're in a state that allows you to conceal your address on voter rolls and if they require proof of a reason first.

Two Listen

Question. Since it seems this change is taking place due to compliance with some EU law (to do with legal shit needing to go to a physical address, based on something I read in the comments in the article link), does that mean this will not impact developers in the US? Or that it is possible for developers to...say, not accept €'s on their merchant account? It's been over a year since I looked at a Google Play developer merchant account, but I seem to recall various options for accepted currencies. (...yeah, I realize how silly saying "screw you EU" would be, just thinking.)

I sort of assume there's nothing to be done about it. Sucks for indie folk, but at the same time, handling the business side of things is something I think everyone needs to seriously determine they can handle before diving into it to begin with.