Google Pulls Paid Apps From Taiwanese Android Market 186
tlhIngan writes "Taiwan recently mandated that online download sites (like Apple's App Store and Google's Marketplace) must comply with a law stating consumers have 7 days to return goods bought sight-unseen. While Apple has complied, Google has refused to comply. Taiwan fined the search giant NT$1M (approx. US$34,600). In retaliation, Google pulled the paid apps section of the Market for users in Taiwan."
Caveat Emptor (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm not really surprised. After all, there's no way most games in the Market take over a week to beat, so this would essentially be giving free video games to Taiwan. That said, I also support customer rights however they manifest. This isn't going to be an easy fix.
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The alternative is that Google should start requiring demos...
Using the Android Marketplace is an effort in frustration and regret.
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I have no problems using it. If you do, you could try the amazon market. Not like you are tied to only one market.
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It's not the marketplace, it's the lack of policy on demo/trial downloads.
And when there is a demo/trial it's almost always another app all together so I have to go hunting for it under "Demo" or "trial" or "lite" or "light" or...
I wanted to try ADWLauncher EX this weekend but couldn't find a demo so that's a potential lost sale. I'm not going to spend $10 to see how well it works in practice.
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Why could you not try the regular ADW?
Install CM7 that comes with it.
I have 7.1RC1 on my Droid 1.
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After all, there's no way most games in the Market take over a week to beat, so this would essentially be giving free video games to Taiwan.
Has this ever happened before, or is it just assumed that it will happen?
User's fault for not reading app description (Score:2, Informative)
If you take a look at poorly rated similar prank apps, the reviews are trife with "this doesn't
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Still think that should be considered a scamm. It tries really hard to look legit on everything but the description...
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please, do tell why it is stupid.
I don't mind constructive criticism.
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>
I don't mind constructive criticism.
You must be new here.
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Come on, this is only one step above the people who run eBay auctions advertising expensive items, describe the item in great detail then put in small writing at the bottom "please note you are buying a picture of the item, not the item itself". Would you not describe those as scams?
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How about those people selling "air guitars" - the descriptions even say "air guitar"? ;) ).
(shipped in an envelope
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What happened to personal responsibility?
Such as having to take personal responsibility when caught trying to con people out of their money?
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How many languages is that disclaimer clear on?
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If Apple is going to spend all this time reviewing apps and rejecting them for all kinds of reasons, you'd think they might rename the ones that are going to cause people problems rather than taking the unprofessional passive/aggressive approach: "Well, you should have read the description! Just because it says it's a Super Cell Phone Tracker doesn't mean it IS one!"
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If you take a look at poorly rated similar prank apps, the reviews are trife with "this doesn't work, I got ripped off" even though the app description clearly states it's a prank, oftentimes in the first sentence.
It's all well and good when the app description clearly says so. In some cases, though, it doesn't say anything of the kind, but the app still doesn't work.
On Android this is actually much worse, since there's no premoderation for the app store, so all kind of crap gets in. It's not unusual to purchase an app that will immediately force close upon running because the author only wrote and tested it to run on his phone, and did not bother to write portable code.
They are complying, I guess. (Score:2)
Retaliation? (Score:2)
That'll show em.
Re:Retaliation? (Score:5, Informative)
"Retaliation" and "pulls" are flamebait words made up by the submitter. Google's statement used the word suspended, meaning the action is likely temporary until further consideration.
It's a good law... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Depends -what- post was that. If they rickrolled the jury, they were really asking for it.
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In which case Taiwan might still be "ahead" of the USA...
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What a difference an 'F' makes. (Score:2)
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The word is "off", not "of".
If you're going to be a grammar pedant at least try to be a correct grammar pedant.
Google pulled the paid apps section of the Market for users in Taiwan.
"Of the market" as in "belonging to/part of the Market". This is perfectly valid and much better English than using "off" in the way you wanted to see.
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While your statement is not grammatically incorrect, it is clearly not what the Author was trying to say. The original statement is also correct.
Instead of explaining why off is correct, or why an alternate use of of is correct, explain why the original use was incorrect.
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Are you implying those who root their Android do it to pirate software?
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The word is "off", not "of".
No. There are two parts of the Android market. There is the "paid" part and the "free" part. They are distinct parts and thus Google has removed the "paid" apps part of the market.
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Sentences are not to begin with words such as 'but', 'and', 'or', or 'because', as they are conjunctions linking ideas. Your sentence would have been fine had it begun thusly: "Other than that,...". Yes, you also missed a comma after "that".
But for your errors, your comment was mildly interesting.
Will they pull out of the UK (Score:3)
I wonder if they will pull out of the UK too? The UK has distance selling regulations [oft.gov.uk] that mandate a seven day "cooling off period" for internet sales.
Indeed, it looks like these regulations should be EU wide and I don't see any exemption for software sales.
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Unfortunately not
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2000/2334/regulation/13/made [legislation.gov.uk]
Exceptions to the right to cancel
13.—(1) Unless the parties have agreed otherwise, the consumer will not have the right to cancel the contract by giving notice of cancellation pursuant to regulation 10 in respect of contracts—
(d)for the supply of audio or video recordings or computer software if they are unsealed by the consumer;
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If you didn't download; there no "seal" was broken. At least, it's the next best thing.
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Indeed - the only reason for that was because the consumer could copy then return. That, however, is not a concern here as the App Store should be able to deactivate the software on the client.
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BS. Buy, download, copy the .apk, return. It's totally possible, and people are lame enough to do that.
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Do downloads of electronic books or music from a website, or the purchase of ring tones and screen savers for mobile phones fall within the cancellation exceptions referred to above?
3.39 We consider that these examples are likely to constitute services, rather than goods as the consumer does not receive physical goods. The right to cancel are therefore those that apply to services.
Earlier they state that services that start before the end of the cancellation period are exempt in general, so it does in fact seem that there is an exemption for download-only software sales.
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Usually countries make smaller or larger adjustments to fit the local/national situation.
Yes there are exemptions for things like CD's you could copy and continue to use the copy even when the original has been 'returned'.
What they didn't say (Score:3)
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Well played, Taiwan (Score:3)
How do you make the pay-for-crap-software market go away? Make the guys running it go away. I'm pretty sure that the Taiwanese aren't going to miss a $5 frontend to "killall" or about a dozen pay frontends to "ntpdate"
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Theres a front end for ntpdate on android? Why the fuck doesn't it use the time from the cell network, which is kind of required to be accurate if you want the phone to actually ... you know, make calls.
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Because some shitty networks (i.e. my admittedly budget provider) don't supply that service.
15 minutes refund is a bad policy. (Score:2)
So I don't understand why Google is doing it. Is it really slowly becoming another evil empire? Or it j
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And yet Apple's App Store rakes in the money without any sort of return policy (that I can find) to begin with.
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I bought an iPhone from one of the Steves because it was the better product for me. When my contract ends, it might be something else but I feel Apple will want to keep my business.
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Apple complies with the 7-day requirement in Taiwan, but doesn't allow refunds elsewhere in the world.
link [pocketgamer.biz]
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Unless Taiwan is a huge market for apps, this is largely irrelevant. The OP thinks that 15 minutes is too short, yet Apple has generated over $2 billion in app store sales.
http://www.talkandroid.com/39922-mobile-app-store-sales-will-grow-77-7-this-year/ [talkandroid.com]
And Apple's official policy seems to be no returns in markets where consumer laws don't require it. Some people have said that Apple will accept returns--I can't verify this.
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They don't have an automatic system, but they do allow refunds through manual support tickets addressed by a human being.
They are a rare thing mainly because apps that get too many request tend to get fraudulent and taken out of the App Store quickly.
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And yet, Apple's App Store complied with the 7 day policy.
BTW, Apple does refunds, but they are a manual thing with support tickets and human intervention. They don't have an automated system in place.
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Maintaining several different versions of apps also has its cost - each version should be tested and updated simultaneously. In addition it happened to me in the past that a feature missing in the lite version, but promised in the full one simply didn't work. Tha
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The reason the app quality on Android is poor is because it is harder to make money. They have more incentive to develop for the iPhone because their users are more willing to spend money. Shortening the refund window is just on small step Google took to help attract developers.
Most of the people who complain about the 15 minute policy are the ones who are too cheap to buy stuff anyways. Most people don't even know about the refund policy and it isn't a factor in the buying decision.
I develop for the And
Retaliation or Compliance? It's not that simple. (Score:3)
If you lose a court case because you are out of compliance, the first reasonable action may be to pull the product until you can make the change, test the change, and put the site back up.
Or, they found another problem, namely, that they can't sell US apps because of existing contractual obligations to US app owners. So, in Taiwan, it may not be as simple as extending the return period to 7 days. In fact, they may need to create a totally walled off Taiwan store, which gives app owners the option of selling there, thereby submitting to a 7 day return.
Obviously, some games will not do this for one big reason... some games can be completed in under 7 days, and therefore it makes no sense to sell there.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
What's the motivation? (Score:2)
Google can clearly afford USD 34,000. Not even half a year of salary and benefits for one developer. So they get fined. Cost of doing business. Ignore it can carry on.
On the other hand, why would they not want to comply with what on the face of it is a good, pro-consumer law? And what happened to the corporate motto, "do not be evil"?
Disabling the paid segment of the market for Taiwan just seems so --- what's the word? ah, yes --- petulant, especially since there are alternate reactions that make more
A precedent for elsewhere? (Score:2)
Frankly software developers could do with a bit
Maybe we now see more apps outside the market (Score:2)
Conflicted (Score:2)
As a customer, I think a 7 day return window is very reasonable; I also know that I'm not likely to abuse it.
As a developer, a 7 day return window seems pretty excessive. I've got a simple puzzle game that has deeper strategy to it for players who enjoy it, but it's also possible that someone might play it for a couple of hours and not have it hook them. I'm ok with that. However, at only a dollar or two, I think that they probably got their money's worth, even if they do only choose to play it for a cou
Does it make sense to refund "returned" software? (Score:2)
So I should be about to buy ms-windows, or ms-office. Then return them, for a full refund a few days later.
How about CDs or DVDs?
Anybody else see a problem with this picture?
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They have refunding protocols, just not for 7 days.
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Bullshit. Refunds are normally, absolutely NOT handled by developers. They are handled automatically. They are ONLY handled manually if they are past the trial period and then, only at the discretion of the developer.
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What? You mean an android developer processes their own payments on someone elses store? I don't buy it.
Whoever runs the marketplace could handle the refunds if they can take the payments. If they don't know how to handle the refunds you probably shouldn't be buying from them anyway as its highly unlikely they were capable of making a secure site for processing payments in the first place.
We take CCs and send them off to our provider via a SOAP request, we then get a transaction id back, for 30 days we
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He can't be mad at Google, he is a die hard Google fan, he has to lash out at whatever he perceives to be the threat to his favorite company.
Re:Hey Taiwan... (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, I don't see why.
Taiwan told Google that if they're going to sell stuff, they have to offer refunds. If they don't have a mechanism in place to offer refunds, they stop selling.
It's a valid response. It might not be the one you'd prefer, but I don't see why they don't get the option of saying "well, that's not how it works anywhere else". Is Taiwan entitled to buy stuff from Google or something?
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Android Market has always had a refund mechanism - if you uninstall the app within 15 minutes of purchasing it [google.com], you get a refund. Developers cannot opt out of this, either (but they don't process refunds, Google does). In fact, the trial period used to be 24 hours until the end of last year [androidcentral.com].
So it's not a matter of technical feasibility or implementation cost of the feature, but solely of Google marketing policy. It seems that they think they'll lose more money with those refunds than they'll gain from app s
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Imagine the following scenario:
I go on a weekend visit to a city.
I buy a 30$ GPS software for my phone
I use it for the weekend.
I return it.
Same thing with any game or software. Want to make a trial period? 24 hours is more than enough to evaluate if it is good enough or not. 7 days is unreasonable.
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So? Some people do the same with physical objects that have far longer return windows. Buy something you only need once, use it, return it. There is always going to be some fraud.
What you could do is only allow someone one return. If they've returned it once, the next time there is no return period (barring major version changes).
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And most of the time they require the item to be returned in mint condition, and games with cd-keys and whatnot usually aren't accepted.
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"Imagine the following scenario:
I go on a weekend visit to a city.
I buy a 30$ GPS software for my phone
I use it for the weekend.
I return it."
That is why we can't have nice things.
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How is Taiwan to blame? Google is the one you should be mad with. The law is good, but google's reaction to it just plain sucks
Really a week to make up your mind about a $1 app? That plain sucks in my view. What stops people from using it for a week and returning it after they get tired of it?
Most legit and useful apps provide free versions as demos for the paid version so you have an idea of what your getting. I agree google has all kinds of quality problems that need to be addressed but I tend to favor a solution where people have reasonable tools to make an informed decision about what they are getting up front.
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Don't BE evil Re:don't do evil (Score:3)
By complying with Taiwanese law instead of continuing to violate it? Not sure how that qualifies as doing evil.
Oh, by the way, the Google motto "Don't be evil" [wikipedia.org].
Re:don't do evil (Score:4, Informative)
You have to do more than just claim that something is evil. You have to make an actual point about why this is evil.
Put yourself in their shoes. You're a business, and want to operate in some jurisdiction. They have rules you don't like. You can either a) abide by the rules, b) choose not to operate there, or c) campaign to have the rules changed. All of these area reasonable options, none of them are evil, and Google chose B.
Stop being so alarmist.
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If people want them back, they can address their governments as to why they're not available and perhaps have a referendum on the matter. Just a though, and I'm not sure whether or not it's a particularly good one.
So, the proper course of action is for citizens to go to their government and tell them "please, take away our consumer rights so we can give money to this foreign company"?
This is not a stupid case of link searching, or a censorship issue. This is something the Taiwanese government has dictated to be a basic consumer right. Heck, I'd love if such a thing was made law here too.
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So sorry. Let's fix this:
Apple complies with Taiwan's policy whilst Google shows them who's the boss and in retaliation, pulls paid apps from Taiwanese on-line store. Apple's anti-business behaviour is appalling, forcing Taiwanese into just one store from where to buy software. Through this move, Apple no doubt encourages copyright infringements and war between China and Taiwan.
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That's bizarro /., the one with the goatee and stylish black turtleneck.
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All of these area reasonable options, none of them are evil
sure, in the same sense that there's no universal concept of good or evil. for example, turning over the email accounts of chinese dissidents? that's quite "good" if you are part of the ruling party in china.
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You have to do more than just claim that something is evil. You have to make an actual point about why this is evil.
Put yourself in their shoes. You're a business, and want to operate in some jurisdiction. They have rules you don't like. You can either a) abide by the rules, b) choose not to operate there, or c) campaign to have the rules changed. All of these area reasonable options, none of them are evil, and Google chose B.
Stop being so alarmist.
There may be a point here. If I was a Taiwanese Android App Developer I would really be annoyed at Google right now. If my income was cut because Google did not agree with a 7 day refund law, I would really think Google to be evil.
Here is a good question: Did Google ask the developers who's income are in the line if they would rather have their personal apps opt-into compliance and give a 7-day refund window? Are they planning to do this?
This is not even close to the Chinese censorship issues. In this case
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Better to be ridiculous in favor of the consumer than the corporate overlord (which 15 minutes is).
Agreed with GP.
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Kids do buy games without their parents permission too. Which may only become apparent after a few days.
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If I recall Google has a 30 minute return policy on apps.
Which is total bullshit considering there have been many cases when I've fought for well more than 30 minutes just to get an app to download and install.
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The 15 minutes (not 30, at least last time I saw it) only starts counting after the app is successfully installed on your device.
Though I agree, the limit is still too short to make any meaningful test on an app.
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What about non-game products?
How about a language translator you need for a 3 day trip? Then when the trip is over, you return it.
What about a VIN number researcher? And when you're done, you return it.
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Im sorry but ive been screwed WAY too many times by unusable and unreturnable software. If the product is good and useful only a small percentage of users are going to return it. That is the cost of doing business. Some people buy camcorders for their vacations and attempt to return them after, ditto for TVs and the Super Bowl, does that mean that all camcorders/TVs should be non-refundable?
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How about navigation software? A Geocaching app? Some kind of social networking client? A document viewer / editor?
How can you make any meaningful test on any of those in only 15 minutes?
Navigation software is especially problematic, since many of them have to download GBs of data on the first run. That's your 15 minutes right there.
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Facebook/Twitter take more than 5 minutes of examining? Document viewers? Not IMO... usually less.
It took me quite a bit of use to find faults in some early Twitter clients for Android which at first seemed to be great. Things you will only get on extended use in interactions with other people.
And what about things like Foursquare or Gowalla, which can only really be tested by going out?
Editors are a weird fit for mobiles... intrinsically they belong to desktops. I haven't found one editor suite yet which was appealing on the mobile device. Usually they target desktop file formats (!) instead of mobile formats... it's a disaster.
Just because you don't like them, doesn't mean that they don't appeal to others. Sometimes being able to edit something on the go is convenient for some users.
Besides, the "mobile" space isn't just phones anymore. You'd be hard-pressed to tell some tablets from actual laptops nowadays (the Asus transformer, for example). What's the difference between editing your document on your netbook/laptop or in a tablet equipped with a keyboard and mouse?
I'll agree on the downloader apps though. But those are a prime candidate for demo-ing. Users will hate you if they download GBs of data only for the app not to work. Games have this problem all the time -- where they're optimized for particular SoCs, but the problem of performance/incompatibility only becomes apparent after d/l'ing 500MB of static assets.
I do agree with you, but that still leaves out navigation software. There's really no way to test that without maps, and those usually come in heavy packages. Well, I suppose you could do smaller maps for your trial version, but it's still not ideal.
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And how much money will you lose by doing nothing but playing for 7 days?
Oh, you were fired from your last job a year ago for being an anonymous coward, and still unemployed for the same reason? Sorry, this question doesn't apply to you then...