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Google Pulls Paid Apps From Taiwanese Android Market
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."
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.
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.
Yeah, screw Taiwan for looking out for the public interest.
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.
They have refunding protocols, just not for 7 days.
This is Google doing evil.
I suppose that is one way to comply with the law.
The dogcow says "Moof!"
That'll show em.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
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.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
Why are these folks always ahead of us... faster broadband, contactless payment... If they void software patents, I'm emigrating.
The word is "off", not "of". But other then that I have to wonder how much of this is a technical issue. As far as I can tell the Android market has no real system in place for insuring that an app gets removed prior to a refund being issued. Which would more or less make paid apps "free" if they where forced to allow refunds. Bit of a PITA and something I hope Google addresses soon.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
I wonder if they will pull out of the UK too? The UK has distance selling regulations 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.
Why is the law good? Seven days is an unreasonably long time. How many games can you beat/get tired of in a week? How many apps are situational, things that you really only need once or once in a while. For something physical it sort of makes sense, but I still think it goes to far. For something virtual, that long of a mandated refund window is just unreasonable. You get the app minutes after purchase, and you know if it's something you want minutes after that. The only use for a window this long is so people can abuse it.
Was that you can return you Apple app, but Steve Jobs gets your soul.
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
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".
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?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
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 $5 frontend to "killall" or about a dozen pay frontends to "ntpdate"
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you
Under a seven day return policy, someone can purchase a game, playing through it in a week, and then return it for a full refund. Unless you have a lot of content or are super addictive, this seems like it would kill most indie game developers. If I recall Google has a 30 minute return policy on apps.
So I don't understand why Google is doing it. Is it really slowly becoming another evil empire? Or it just can't cope with high rates of refunds caused by low Android app quality?
Bullshit. Refunds are normally, absolutely NOT handled by developers. They are handled automatically. They are ONLY handled manually if they are past the trial period and then, only at the discretion of the developer.
Imagine the following scenario:
I go on a weekend visit to a city.
I buy a 30$ 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.
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.
I8-D
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 sense. Two points demerit for Google for not taking the higher ground.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
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).
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 $1 app? That plain sucks in my view. What stops people from using it for a week and returning it after they get tired of it?
Most legit and useful apps provide free versions as demos for the paid version so you have an idea of what your getting. I agree google has all kinds of quality problems that need to be addressed but I tend to favor a solution where people have reasonable tools to make an informed decision about what they are getting up front.
Agree with this. Any game can really be completed in 7 days. However it would not affect utilities, and tools that you would use on a day to day basis. It would only affect those games that you can beat in 7 days. Which is anything other than pointless addictive farmville clones. Those games never end. On the other hand, whats to stop a person from buying the game, returning it, then buying it again. Oh now we are getting into the same problem brick and mortar stores have to deal with. Hmmm.
"Imagine the following scenario:
I go on a weekend visit to a city.
I buy a 30$ GPS software for my phone
I use it for the weekend.
I return it."
That is why we can't have nice things.
The solution to it? Let them do it. I mean its inconvenient enough, and those people would probably not buy the products anyways, and alienating possible customers is never a good solution. So make it inconvenient to steal it, and cheaply affordable. Those that want it will buy it. Those that just muck around will not buy it anyways. Unlike with brick and mortar stores, you haven't lost anything other than a couple MB of data transfer. But I think the good will and retainment of those willing to pay is much more important to keep. This is something most companies have not learned yet.
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...
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.
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 can issue a refund on any part of that transaction, after which its settled and we can issue a refund, but it costs us a quarter or something like that extra to do so as they actually have to transfer money between banks again.
To issue a refund is simply another SOAP request with the transaction id and the amount and/or items to refund.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
The world would have been different place if software had any kind of warranty or guarantee. Software world is privledged in how little liability it faces compared to any other industry. We'd have less complex, feature-heavy software, and it would take much longer to get to market. However it has some benefits it would be more robust, reliable and simple. It would encourage better design for security and stability before all sorts of bleeding edge features.
Frankly software developers could do with a bit more liability and consumers of software much more protection. It's unfortunate but such law would protect the industry more than the consumer, since confidence in paid software products these days is very low. I can't think how many times I've paid for a game or software package and wholeheartedly regretted it.
I live in NZ and NZ's main consumer protection law, the "Consumer Guarantees Act 1993" actually covers software (although it's almost never enforced to the same level as phsyical goods, and few consumers know their rights fully). I missed my chance to try it out with Windows Vista. In hindsight there are many games and software packages I've bought over the years that were clearly substandard compared to how they were marketted that the law would have applied. It seems the software industry finds a balance, if customers are too disillusioned they just won't buy software and will resort to piracy, to get ahead industry players have to restore confidence and push quality (Apple has done this masterfully).
Infact our consumer law reads like a wishlist of software users ideal solution to their software nightmares.
1) A guarantee that the software is of âoeacceptable qualityâ (interpretted as "fit for a purpose")
2) A guarantee that the software will comply with any description provided by the developer (does what it says it does on the box).
3) A guarantee that the developer will facilititate repair or replacement of the goods (difficult to interpret with software, but the developer can't just do nothing for the user).
Yep that means I would have got a refund for Vista... and Duke Nukem Forever maybe.
I don't support Google in this case, rather than behaving like a petulant child they should have sought some compromise, an exclusion on games, movies, ebooks perhaps? Shutting yourself out of a market isn't a good look and you'd lose more if you stayed put and weathered the impact of scammers. Google could consider kicking developers off the market that have a way too higher percent of product returns.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
I hope this will lead to more and more releases of applications outside Google market. I don't want a Google account but even some Open Source apps I want to run (Groundhog usenet reader) are only available through the market.
Although I think 1 day would be plenty.
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 couple of hours. It's about like trying out a game in the arcade and deciding that you don't like it, with the added bonus that if you *do* like it, you get to keep it forever. I'd be ok with a 30 minute return window, as that's plenty of time to check out a puzzle game and decide if you like it at all, but beyond that, if you're still playing, it's because you see *something* in it.
So I'm all for stronger customer protection laws, but at the same time, 7 days seems somewhat excessive for really small purchases. Perhaps the price of the item needs to be taken into account when determining the return window?
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
Exactly! After being exposed to the rotting stench that is Duke Nukem Forever I just had to pull out the original Duke Nukem Atomic and load up the high res pack just to have me some real Duke Nukem goodness. That game is from what? 1997? Still plays great on win 7 HP X64 BTW.
If you make a good product, especially a good product at an affordable price? Folks by and large WILL keep your product. As others have pointed out theoretically you could use the same argument for things like power tools that IRL most folks will have limited use for. But we aren't talking power saws here, we are talking about little time wasters to give you something to do while you are in the doctor's office or waiting in line someplace.
So IMHO Google is the douche in this and I wish we would have a similar law passed here in the states for ALL software. I can't count the number of times I've been all jazzed up because I got me a killer new game to play, i'm waaay above the minimum specs, but then I get home and load it up only to have the game run like shit if it runs at all so the ONLY thing I get for my money is a lighter wallet.
If your game or app is so shitty that you honestly think people can't even get the low selling price worth of entertainment or use out of it after a measly 7 days? Well maybe you might want to think about not making programs that are so shitty. I've bought plenty of bargain basement programs that weren't anywhere near AAA quality but you know what? I got my $3-$7 bucks worth of use out of them so I was happy. We aren't talking about some $1000 a seat enterprise software here, we are talking about giving the customer a few bucks worth of use/entertainment. If you can't even manage that? Well maybe you ought to think about designing something other than another iFart.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Android Market has always had a refund mechanism - if you uninstall the app within 15 minutes of purchasing it, you get a refund. Developers cannot opt out of this, either (but they don't process refunds, Google does). In fact, the trial period used to be 24 hours until the end of last year.
So it's not a matter of technical feasibility or implementation cost of the feature, but solely of Google marketing policy. It seems that they think they'll lose more money with those refunds than they'll gain from app sales in Taiwan.
So I should be about to buy ms-windows, or ms-office. Then return them, for a full refund a few days later.
How about CDs or DVDs?
Anybody else see a problem with this picture?
That's why computer stores here no longer allow returning laptops (except for the usual defective product exchange)
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
This is for all online orders, not just for 1$ apps. Sticking an exception for 1$ apps into a law seems silly to me.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Some people at my company make Android apps in their free time, they argue that paid apps in Germany are futile as you need a credit card to purchase them and people here don't have credit cards (we don't need them for anything except American companies who fail to adjust to the ways of the country).
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
You can always return faulty software under different consumer regulations. I've returned unsealed faulty blue ray disks to the shops without any problems. This is about where you change your mind after purchasing the product but there is nothing wrong with it. If it is a pair of shoes, you can do that, but you can't for software.
Yet, Google is happy to sell us Android apps.
Also, I have no idea how would I ask for an application refund, though. I guess they just ignore the local obsolete legislation. And something made it impossible for them to ignore it in Taiwan.
Interesting, How do you guys shop online then? Do you guys use those net-banking gateways that directly debit the amount from your account?
If the 7 days is the issue (that you can finish a game). Why not let people download the game and play it for 4 hours. Then charge them to buy it or deactivate it without having the 7 day constraint as they won't be buying it sight unseen.
Hunger is the best sauce.