Hey all
When I signed today to my developer account, Google displayed a new agreement and terms of condition that said I have to accept to continue developing. Any one else saw it or word on what’s different?
What I have read and important to me as below:
Product Ratings. The Store will allow users to rate and review Products. Only users who download the applicable Product will be able to rate and review it on the Store. Product ratings may be used to determine the placement of Products on the Store, subject to Google’s ability to change placement at Google’s sole discretion. The Store may also assign you a composite score for any Product that has not received user ratings. A Developer Composite Score will be a representation of the quality of your Product based on your history and will be determined at Google’s sole discretion. For new Developers without Product history, Google may use or publish performance measurements such as uninstall and/or refund rates to identify or remove Products that are not meeting acceptable standards, as determined by Google. Google reserves the right to display Products to users in a manner that will be determined at Google’s sole discretion.
You have 29 days left to agree to the new agreement. After that, access to this developer console will be blocked for you and any additional users until you agree to the new agreement
wtf is google thinking…
This is funny, good buy internet free vacations:
For paid Products or in-app transactions, you must respond to customer support inquiries within three (3) business 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.
In fact many big companies with very expensive in-app transactions had a very bad support (no response at all for most case, much like google)
I have a game in the playstore for 5 years and I only received one or two “urgent” mails
The main problem in these new policies for lonely developers is the obligation to show publicly a physical address (not only to customers…)
Well, if you have a business your address is public anyway. Although Google Play will probably be a place where spammers will get our addresses for spam, threats etc. I am considering renting an office to solve this. The 3 day support should be doable - I never wait with such issues anyway, although it might be problematic if I am on a longer vacations in a place without Internet - although it’s rare to have no Internet even in distant countries, I suppose.
Google is forcing a privacy violation on developers for absolutely no reason. Users of Google Play are not app customers. It’s as relevant as requiring us to put our addresses on a billboard on the freeway.
my reaction to EVERY google play dev announcement in last 2-3 years https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umDr0mPuyQc
The thing that seems questionable is that they will be rating things how they like. So if they don’t like an app, they will give it bad rating… And what’s that with all the app sales tax?
I’m tired.
sigh Google at it again, always trying to change their policy and screw us over. I’m looking to publish some of my apps on other markets, so sick of all their rules and restrictions.
Amazon should make it into an ad for developers: “We don’t publish your address on Amazon AppStore” etc.