if this comes under law, providing wrong or fake address will increase the problems further. any consumer can file case for wrong address being shown to them and google will simply pass on the legalities to devs. It would be a big mistake to provide wrong address if you have IAP/paid apps.
IMHO, best solution if you want to sell apps or IAPS is to register your company in virtual office. I’m not sure if it’s possible in every country. Basically you pay some office small fee, and can register company under their address.
One thing wonders me. Ebay is writing:
Under EU consumer protection law, business sellers who sell items over the internet to consumers must provide their customers with information about their business…
They write about business sellers. What about devs who don’t have buiness entity, they just private persons. Can’t they sell things over internet? Or those laws don’t concern them?
What @mike82 sys is consistent with the reply I got from Google re the physical address:
To comply with consumer protection laws in different jurisdictions, you may be required to provide certain business contact information, including email and/or business address. Please speak with your legal representative on the different types of information that can be used.
As an example, for more information on the types of business contact information that can be used, the European Commission has provided official guidance that may be helpful.
http://ec.europa.eu/justice/consumer-marketing/files/crd_guidance_en.pdf
All I need to do is to speak to my ‘legal representative’ - hah! Shame about PO boxes not being adequate, although they’re not free anyway, I thought. Not had time to look through the pdf yet…
Google can stop ****ing pretending we are the sellers and not them. Apple and Amazon AppStores somehow can, but Google can’t?
I guess that’s their excuse for not caring about market quality - cause otherwise (if they would be sellers) they would have to review what ppl are uploading. Who knows - maybe someone could sue them for selling games with stolen graphics, using registered trademarks etc. Now they are clean - they are not selling anything, they are just renting “place” to seller who can sell anything they want.
Anyway, they could behave more friendly towards devs, by:
- Sending emails two months ago.
- Provide all information - why it’s needed, what is needed and in what situations (only for devs with paid or IAP apps).
Also, they should:
- Hide that data from all countries beside EU.
- Maybe provide that data only when user queries for it? If someone is interested in data of some dev, he could file some query with captcha, and see that data - so at least devs are protected from web crawling.
To me, this just looks like a higher barrier to entry.
Like I’ve said before, the window of opportunity is closing for small, indie devs, this is where medium to large size devs separate from small even further.
On the other hand, you can look at this as an opportunity, and establish a DBA or Sole Poroprietorship for yourself (it takes literally 10 minutes here in USA), a quick PO box should not cost more than $10/year either.
I’ve been looking at http://ec.europa.eu/justice/consumer-marketing/files/crd_guidance_en.pdf (p.73 especially) and one of the directives it mentions - see L_2011304EN.01006401.xml. From the latter:
Article 6
Information requirements for distance and off-premises contracts
- Before the consumer is bound by a distance or off-premises contract, or any corresponding offer, the trader shall provide the consumer with the following information in a clear and comprehensible manner:
…
(c) the geographical address at which the trader is established and the trader’s telephone number, fax number and e-mail address, where available, to enable the consumer to contact the trader quickly and communicate with him efficiently and, where applicable, the geographical address and identity of the trader on whose behalf he is acting;(d) if different from the address provided in accordance with point (c), the geographical address of the place of business of the trader, and, where applicable, that of the trader on whose behalf he is acting, where the consumer can address any complaints;
Right - is it that costly that Google could not setup something similar ?
Or is it just that the type of folks at Google at the time they were doing this were not wanting to get into this - i.e. were not seeing the app store stuff as a whole - but only seeing it as something that others would do for them or something.
Or maybe they had a plan to capitalize on illegal content - and doing it the way they have would provide them deniability (while benefitting from the 90% of stuff that is illegal) - thereby filling up their store with apps containing content (even if it is illegal/copyrighted).
Now that their Google Play store has lots of apps - perhaps Google can consider moving to a model similar to Apple/Amazon (where those companies are the seller of the app - and so are responsibe for tax etc.).
I already have a sole proprietorship but with the office located in my own house. PO box is not allowed but I found a virtual office for about $200 per year in my vicinity, so it’s the best solution I suppose.
I haven’t set up a company yet and didn’t really intend to to be honest. I also saw on p.23 of http://ec.europa.eu/justice/consumer-marketing/files/crd_guidance_en.pdf that a PO box isn’t sufficient. My app’s currently making far less than $200/year and so there’s no way I could justify paying that kind of money for a virtual office. So far I’m just going to wait and see what kind of address I can get away with if and when Google finally insist on one being provided… Hopefully they won’t be too vigilant in policing their requirement for apps not making much money, but I appreciate wishful thinking isn’t much to go on…
another alternative is a mailbox at a UPS store. You get a stress address instead of just a box number.
The address field has been created now ;-). Hopefully we will receive Christmas letters this december hehe! (or with anthrax)
I have 2 developer accounts for paid and free apps separately.
Shall i mention my physical address for developer account containing free apps also??
Below is the Google policy of physical address update which only mentions for Paid and InAppPurchases.
Please provide a current, valid postal address where you may be contacted. If you offer apps or in-app items for sale, you are required to provide a postal address under our developer terms and consumer protection laws; failure to do so may result in the suspension of your account and/or sales of your apps. Please ensure that you keep these details up to date if they change. By providing your email or postal address information, you confirm that you consent to Google publicly displaying or disclosing that information in connection with your apps.
@BigPanda You can because there is not any rule prevent you open 2 gmail address or developer accout.
Anyone of you see physical address appear on Play Store? I updated but not find it anywhere, i am not live in Europe too.
I do not want to mention my physical address if it is not required. will not show address for my free account.
hope it will not close my account.
As you said,addresses are not visible in market. it may show up in few days. so wait for come.
sorry for my bad english.
Yes, only paid app and app have IAP must enter physical address.
I’ve entered my address in both GP accounts. One is a “temporary” address from the apartment where I live during weekdays (but nothing is registered on this address - I just don’t want expose my real address). The other is real, but I used my brand name (not business name) like this: Acme, Main Street 01, 9000 San Antonio.
Will they verify these addresses?
Yeah, I think stating your business name only might be better, since people will not assume it’s your home address. I have provided mine, it’s available anyway on the web everywhere, so… I only hope I won’t get too much paper spam now.
Can share the website that register PO box address for $10/year? If I don’t have any paid apps or in-app purchase meaning that I don’t need to specify the physical contact address?
What if you provide a fake address or an address you used to live in? Will that be detected? Craaazy requirement by Google for us private developer with couple of 100s per month