Google does not support paid apps from my developer location - so I don’t have a merchant account (i.e. only free apps).
And I do not see an entry place for address in Google Developer Console … yet.
i don’t have merchant account too, but i have place to write down my address. should i do that (i have only free apps)?
No. Its only for those who has paid/iap apps.
Google has announced for physical address but I am using my apps without physical address. So I think it is not compulsory to submit your physical address.
My apps are free, but I submitted the address anyway. It’s the address from where I currently live, instead of my home address (to where the business is registered). So if someone sends me a snail mail, I’ll get it anyway.
I’ve just put “Private home address, <County>, UK”. I see some other apps have just put <region>, <country>. Hopefully Google won’t enforce proper postal addresses unless users or regulatory authorities complain.
is this allowed for address?
- I was thinking of FIFA when I said <region>, <country> in my previous post. Well, I’m going to do that unless or until I’m told otherwise by Google. There’s no way I’m giving my home address.
I am not going to give my home address, if i disable IAP in my apps and update them, do I still need to give my address ? ( I don’t have any paid apps)
No; not if you disable IAP. But that’s pretty drastic. Alternatives are to get a business address, a virtual office address, or - like me - provide only a rough physical location.
Well we’ll see about your “rough physical location” after the 30 days are up and they start to enforce the rule…
Indeed it’s drastic but Im not earning any money from the IAP of this app (this is just a remove ads iap) google is not clear in what they want us to do. So I’d rather disable it now and see later how it evolves
Ok, I am now seeing a Physical Address box in the settings tab for Google Developer Console.
It says this at the bottom of it:
Quote:
0 of 1000 characters, 1 of 8 lines
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.
In the alerts tab one can see this as explanation:
Quote:
Add a physical contact address Beginning September 30, 2014, to comply with consumer protection laws, 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, as the seller of that content, it’s mandatory to provide a physical address where you can be contacted. If you don’t provide a physical address on your account, it may result in your apps being removed from the Play Store.
It says IF you offer apps or in-app items for sale - then you are REQUIRED to provide this information.
I am assuming this means that if you only provide free apps - then you are not REQUIRED to fill in this information.
Don’t get me wrong; I’d be happy to provide a valid postal address - just not my home address. If you can suggest a way of getting a valid postal address for free then I’m listening:). For it to be meaningful the system would offer a way of forwarding valid user mail to your (private) forwarding address; since I presume the intent of this policy is to allow users to contact app developers by post, or at least see where they could be contacted. All the options I’ve seen so far cost far more money than I’ve made from my app. So yeah, now I’m holding off adding more features until I see what Google do. Also, I would prefer not to remove IAP from my app because then that would probably upset all the users who have purchased items in the past, only to find that, had they waited, they could have got the same things for free. Plus I’d get even less revenue than I do now of course.
I’ve to add the address due to my paid app, But it is also made available for Free apps !!
Hey guys. There is a cool website charge.org which is taking a action to Google about the banned nature of Google. As my Google developer was account terminated too in past. I have joined the program and signe a digital signature as a android developer… You should also support their this effort. visit the link please. http://goo.gl/ixfBFl
if all my apps are free and i dont have in-app purchases, i suppose that it is not neccesary, is that correct? It is not 100% clear in the Google Play text…
Last I read, this was not going to happen. These clown asking for some dumbass to show up at someone’s house. And I thought it was for IAP apps only.
Interesting and kind of ironic, given that you have to provide your postal address in order to sign the petition!!
IMHO this whole thing about the physical address could be a big storm in a teacup. If Google were really serious about wanting a valid postal address they would provide separate fields for the different parts of your address and validate them rather than simply providing a big text area. So why don’t they do proper address validation?
First, it would be a big job to get this right for all the countries in which they allow developers to provide apps. Look up ZIP codes for the US, post codes for the UK, etc, etc. But a big company like Google still has the resources to do this if they wanted; which leads me onto…
Second, even if they did have proper address validation that wouldn’t stop people providing valid postal addresses which are nevertheless not the correct ones; i.e, someone else’s address. To stop this Google would have to do something like send out snail mail to the provided address and get the recipient to verify they developed the app by providing some sort of unique code. This would be a lot of effort and expense.
Third, Google have probably already done enough to convince any authorities they’re complying with regulations about consumer protection. They’re asking developers to supply valid postal addresses and they’re threatening them with “suspension of your account and/or sales of your apps” if they don’t provide an address. Google can probably say they’ve done enough and it’s ultimately the developer’s responsibility to comply.
So we can probably stop worrying about having to provide our home address. I’ve only provided the general area of where I live. That tells consumers something about where the app originates. The physical address requirement will probably only become a big issue in practice if lots of people provide obviously bogus addresses (“The Bat Cave” for example!), or if end-users complain about developers of specific apps not responding to postal complaints. And who would use the post anyway?!