Google Play In-app Billing does not support donations [1], so open source developers should be allowed to link to their own donation pages. Google Play policies do not spell out that linking to donation platforms such as Patreon is forbidden.
Disallowing developers from using in-app billing for donations, while also barring them from linking to external donation platforms, puts open source projects in a difficult position, and appears to be overly hostile towards funding open source development.
Google must clarify their position on whether they allow donation links in apps published on Google Play. The app takedowns [2] of the last few days show that this is a significant development, and it is of great importance for all open source developers.
It's best to publicly document the messages you receive during app takedowns, since app store policies are often vague, it's easy for reviewers to make mistakes, and having a clear reference for these decisions also helps the public assess the validity of the takedown.
[1] https://play.google.com/about/monetization-ads/
> Here are some examples of products not currently supported by Google Play In-app Billing:
> One time-payments, including peer-to-peer payments, online auctions, and donations.
WireGuard was reinstated after Jason has submitted a new version which does not contain a donation link. The issue has not been solved, and Google did not yet contact maintainers to clarify whether they would be allowed to have a donation link in WireGuard.
Several other open source apps are still missing from Google Play, including andOTP.
While WireGuard was bought back online, version 0.0.20191013 was briefly made available (with a donation link) before it got updated to version 0.0.20191016. Again, the current version of WireGuard does not contain a donation link.
This is the original version of the post, which has become inaccurate minutes after it was posted:
> WireGuard has been reinstated [1], and the donation link is in the app menu (version 0.0.20191013).
> Google has reversed its decision to remove an app that contains a link to a donation page, likely because of public scrutiny.
> I'm hopeful that people will continue to seek answers for why Google has begun to remove these open source apps, there are several of them mentioned in this thread alone. Please don't allow this to go unnoticed, the future of a bunch of less popular open source projects may depend on how this issue is perceived by the public, and addressed by Google.
> [1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wireguard....
The very same thing happened to manyverse (android ssb client) the other day. Got de-listed, resubmitted without donation page, now it's back up.
How google tries to claim any sort of support for open source is beyond me. What open source app doesn't need a donation link? Those approved and funded by google don't, okay. But other than that?
It's unfortunate that the developer resubmitted the app without the donation link, open source projects having a donation link in their apps does not violate Google Play policies.
> Here are some examples of products not currently supported by Google Play In-app Billing:
> One time-payments, including peer-to-peer payments, online auctions, and donations.
I use WireGuard daily since 2017, and it's one of my most favorite computer programs in the entire world - robust, reliable, state-of-art cryptography, and seamless integration into the system.
I've never donated to WireGuard before, and I didn't think about donation (I installed WireGuard from my package manager and didn't realize a donation link exists), until now.
Just donated 25 USD.
Thanks Jason. No thanks, Google.
In an ironic twist, our app that Google supported via Summer of Code was removed.
Whoever came up with this policy and started enforcing it at Google is completely tone-deaf, needs to be fired and publicly called out so we can set an example as a community that this sort of behavior will not be tolerated.
We have contacted engineering leadership at Google and they are in the process of figuring out who it is internally.
Ugh, app stores!
No one needs them for discovering new software. You go to the app store to get a specific piece of software you already know about and whose reputation you’ve already verified.
No one needs them for code signing. If you want the real firefox.apk you can download it from https://firefox.com/ and notice a lack of SSL alarms going off. What’s the code signing for — to let me know that HTTPS works?!
All I really want is an OS facility that only executes code that has been installed explicitly by me, and always in a sandbox. That’ll stop that dodgy email from executing r00t.sh via an exploit in my mail client.
App stores and code signing popups are proxies for that kind of OS facility, but I’d rather it was just part of the OS explicitly.
App stores leave me with all sorts of unwanted properties, namely Google / Apple throwing their unwanted opinion around. Search for Instagram in the iOS App Store: the top UI element is “InstaMap”, thanks Apple!
Apparently andOTP was removed for the same reason a couple of days ago: https://github.com/andOTP/andOTP/issues/396.
As mentioned in the announcement, you can switch over to F-Droid (for the time being) to get the latest version: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.wireguard.android.
Ah yes, the multi-billion dollar megacorp trying to prevent goodwill donations. Dear regulators: BREAK UP GOOGLE.
$50 sent, thanks Jason, no thanks Google.
A small amount relative to the value that you're giving to the world, but hopefully a few pints won't go amiss.
Fuck gatekeepers.
I am not sure why it needs to be called a donation. Just let the in-app purchase unlock some cosmetics in the app like games do. You weren't going to deduct the donation from your taxes anyway.
I am curious how this ends up working out. Google takes a cut of the donations now... but the process of buying is probably easier. So maybe it will increase donation revenue, and make it easier to support free software.
(Taking a step back; it is pretty weird to have apps opening links to web pages that take your credit card number. The app store operators are right to view that with suspicion because I'm sure that for every legitimate open source project, there are a million phishing scams.)
The problem of donation links from Google's perspective is that they are not getting their 30% cut. You might think that this is unfair, but the app is using their distribution platform.
It's possible to make open source applications and still ask for payment on Google Play, either as the asking price, subscription or by adding in-app payments for donations. This is the right way to do it, and will probably also have a much better return since the payment workflow is much easier.
I like the way that the author of Simple Mobile Tools [0] made donations. Applications are free and open source, but there is a paid app Simple Thank You [1].
That's also how I was thinking about doing "donationware" on a mobile app store.
Side note: They are also available on F-Droid.
[0] https://play.google.com/store/apps/collection/cluster?clp=ig...
[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.simplemobi...
> Sorry for the inconvenience. I'm sure many users are just as annoyed as I am. In the interim, luckily F-Droid has our app.[1]
Thank heavens there's an alternate way of distributing apps on Android. Say what you want about Android vs. iOS, but at least there's an alternative if you as a consumer have a beef with Google Play.
A general comment: the need of the hour is to educate the billions of 'ordinary' computer users about the basics of software, privacy, security and trust. We must not fall into the narrative being parroted around off-late that considers end-users as pretty much dumb content consumers who should not be expected to ever know even the minimum about the underlying tech and therefore every decision needs to be made for them by a small minority of corporations, govts, and the tech elite acting as gatekeepers and overseers. This is a dangerous road to go down unwittingly. Too much de facto power is concentrated in the hands of the few while the rest are gradually trained into normalise being helplessly manipulated and told to defer to authority.
I guess this will get lost in the noise, but a few years ago Apple relaxed its restrictions on IAP donations and allows developers to offer a "tip jar" where IAPs don't unlock any specific features. I've been shipping a free and open source app with a donate button on the App Store since mid-2017 [1].
1. https://chatsecure.org/blog/sustainable-open-source-starts-w...
Quote: "They said it was because we're in violation of their "Payments Policy", presumably because we have a link inside the app that opens the user's web browser to wireguard.com/donations/"
C'mon people, is Google we talk about, you know, those who bow to might $$$ only. You should've made a donation link INSIDE google, so they can charge their 30% before you get the money, that's how you keep your app in their store </sarcasm>.
My social-network/IM app (https://movim.eu/) got also removed from the Play Store because I had a link to the F-Droid app.
The Android app is basically a web-view pointing to one of the many instances of the social network https://nl.movim.eu/?login.
Regarding the time (and also money) spent to publish the APK on the Play Store and the hassle it is to discuss with the Google moderation team I didn't bothered putting it back.
As far as moneitisation is concerned it really feels as though Google want you displaying their ads or have you funnel your users through their checkout process. Anything else seems to result in apps getting flagged for violating policies around payments or deceptive advertising.
A lot of people justify Google and Apple's 30% because they provide an app store and distribution.
But Android is Android because of these apps. Without them it would be like the Windows phone which was nice but didn't get enough apps on it and so it failed.
These companies depend on our apps as much as we depend on their app store for distribution.
Fuck apple for starting this walled garden and creating a parasitic relationship rather than a symbiotic relationship.
I would like to point out how the PPSSPP project circumvents this problem. It's an open-source PSP emulator.
They have the a free version available on the Play Store here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.ppsspp.pps...
They also have a "Gold" version available: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.ppsspp.pps...
These two apps are functionally identical, only difference is the logo and that the "Gold" version costs money.
So if you want to contribute some cash to this project, you just buy the "Gold" version. Other open-source projects could adopt this model too to evade this policy.
The price you pay however, is that a part of the money goes to Google. Which is obviously the reason why donation links are not allowed in the first place.
This is really unfortunate. If Google is ready to arm twist a popular project like Wireguard, smaller indie open source apps stand little to no chance than to bend over. This App store gatekeeping should be illegal. Selling the hardware/OS and marketplace by the same person is more like online dictatorship at this time.
One of our apps (https://Yang2020.app) were rejected by Apple for the same reason - having a Donate link. Ultimately we removed the link on native apps (kept it on the Web) and the app was accepted.
However, before doing this, we corresponded with Apple Developer Support / App Review Team and asked them about the Acceptable Business Models of their developer guidelines, which states:
(vii) Apps may enable individual users to give a monetary gift to another individual without using in-app purchase, provided that (a) the gift is a completely optional choice by the giver, and (b) 100% of the funds go to the receiver of the gift. However, a gift that is connected to or associated at any point in time with receiving digital content or services must use in-app purchase.
They scheduled a “specialist” to call us from Apple and discuss this. However when they called a few days later, they repeatedly declined to give a single example of how this paragraph would ever apply. We tried asking many different ways, but they kept saying we would need to submit the app with the business model to get it reviewed. They would not give a single example of an app they approved with this business model. I personally was on the phone and said that we simply wanted to be compliant and it was very expensive to build something just to be rejected, so we wanted guidance about their policies. But the representative did not know anything. I asked if anyone else on their team knew but they basically said no.
So Apple seems to have certain “platitudes” in their Guidelines which companies can’t take advantage of.
Has anyone here seen a single exception to the 30% cut? I know ApplePay may be used to purchase “real-life” items and where you can’t afford to pay 30% less to the vendor. But what about services, like booking time with a teacher? What about digital services such as hosting a videoconference? Apple takes a 30% but you have to pay Twilio. That means any web-based app would cost 30% less!
We were hoping that maybe there can be some link to buy things with Ethereum and since Apple doesn’t offer that facility we can try to argue that we need transactions to be non-reversible etc. Doesn’t Apple allow apps that allow the user to send and receive bitcoin payments to some address? BOOM!
Another thing we can do is micropayments, maybe, and tell users how they can purchase credits elsewhere. But that last part is against Apple’s rules, isn’t it?
Who do you trust more, to secure their infrastructure? Google or F-Droid / a bunch of volunteers who may or may not be very security-conscious?
Not to downplay the effort that F-Droid contributors (or any Android FOSS groups) make, but it's a very legitimate concern.
Would an attacker have an easier time infiltrating Google or a member of F-Droid the development community?
Are users of F-Droid higher value than users of Google Play, to warrant a direct attack? If one wants to pick off users who are fairly technically inclined, other developers, system administrators, etc...F-Droid is a pretty good place to start.
After reading so many similar stories, here is what Google/Apple/etc should, in my opinion.
If an automated process blocks/bans/rejects something, then the message to the developer MUST say "Our automated scanner discovered..."
Any time something is blocked/banned/rejected, the message to the developer MUST explain exactly why. In the case of this article: "Your update was rejected due to a link to a third party payment system. This violates section N of our terms. The link we detected was <insert link here>."
There should be two kinds of appeal processes. Automated, and manual. You should be able to appeal or resubmit to the automated process as often as you need to.
The manual process should involve real time communication between the developer and an appeal agent. Via phone or chat. To prevent the system from being overloaded, only allow developers a few free appeals, then start charging a fee.
Developer accounts should only be fully banned after multiple manual appeals and the appeals agent determining that the developer is operating in bad faith. Automated processes should never be able to fully ban an account. It must involve a real person. Full bans also must include a detailed email to the developer explaining exactly why they have been banned.
The biggest, and most important, change these companies really need to make is including exactly WHY something happened. No more of these general "you violated our TOS" without any explanation of how the TOS was violated messages.
If only there was an alternative to the Apple app store like F-Droid is for Google Play...
I have been disappointed in the Play Store for a while now. Last I checked, they don't display licenses either, so you can't easily tell what's free software. I get everything from F-Droid these days, and on my primary devices I never even install the google apps after flashing LineageOS.
One thing I've found to be true throughout my career: the culture and ethos of organizations is usually a direct consequence of the culture and ethos of the leader who built it initially, and remains as such loooong after said leader is gone.
Well guess what ... the android team at google and the entire android ecosystem is the brainchild of Andy Rubin, who has recently been outed publicly as a total asshole (and who everyone at Google knew was a total asshole since pretty much the start of Android).
All the things wrong with Android, including the iron-fisted management of what can and cannot run on the platform ("I know, I'm squeezing your balls til you pass out, but don't worry, it's for your own protection") can easily be traced to him.
All of these really motivates me to push for decentralized projects. If the future Is basically full of gate keepers choosing what apps can be used or not and we don’t have any platform allowing freedom then it would be a very sad future indeed
Donated via PayPal. Thanks for your work, would be great to see it in the kernel soon.
And yet games with hundred dollar microtransactions stay up fine. It's almost as if Google turn a blind eye to that which makes them richer. oh wait, that's exactly what it's like. The bastards.
Though easy to phrase it as a moral problem, I think the matter requires an unemotional analysis. At first hearing it looks like shutting down avenues by which open source app developers can gather donations, but perhaps the measure was targeted at shady money laundering operations.
Perhaps the right thing to do is for Google to offer a discounted cut to legit open source apps, from the usual 30% to a lesser value or entirely waive it off so that they can still seek contributions through Google play billing.
I've been a regular Wireguard user for the last year and love it. Google just gave me the motivation to finally make a donation.
Thanks for the great work!
No idea why, but this app offers purchases via good old Bank Cards, without any Google mediation.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.navigation...
Recently, new versions "Simple ..." line of open source apps from "simplemobiletools.com "on the F-Droid app store have started popping up requests for donations. Those now need to be checked.
For anyone else publishing mobile apps: Neither Apple nor Google allow bypassing the store's purchase system by linking to external donation pages. No matter the app type, it will result in rejection.
https://abc.xyz/investor/other/code-of-conduct/
"Do the right thing"
> I appealed using their website appeal form. Thirty minutes later (was this automated, unlike the manual app review process?), I received a rejection of the appeal.
Google in a nutshell.
Again making a case for alternative app stores. Yes having a centralized software repository has its benefits, but it's starting to show it's limits ...
This is Google wanting their 30% cut. It's that simple.
Now, if only Google can remove the apps that can be downloaded and installed on youtube video interface. Those pesky apps can be install even by little children.
I would much rather donation links than the horrendous ad spam that comes with most apps.
But of course this impact googles bottom line so the sane approach goes out the window
So if a Facebook profile or article inside an app has a donation link it should get de-listed? All of Facebook fund raising should get burnt as well?!!
So... what is next? Mentioning/linking patreon profile in YouTube videos could also be bannable if one disable ads in their videos?
Uh oh, we have open-source app on Google play with Patreon banner. Seems like we have to expect trouble soon. Thanks, Google!
It's really time for a decentralized / distributed version of the play store to replace the Google provided one.
What is a FOSS app even doing on the Play Store ?!? Didn't these devs get the memo about the GAFAM boycott ??
Can we just stop distributing "donation-ware" FOSS and use F-Droid for that instead? It is not as if Google Play Store is a credible source anyway given all the hostile content (for both privacy and security). Today I learned they even remove the orig. signature [1]
Totally right move! I'd rather see genital enhancement ads than those disgusting, immoral donation links.
In other news, my Pixel 3 with Google Fi keeps reconnecting to Google's VPN without asking me permission.
It's one thing if a government regulates a market, yet another thing if a company regulates it ...
A bit of a tangent, but does anyone know how Netflix gets away with not doing in app payments?
Does patreon link count?
Would linking to Patreon also be against terms and conditions?
Please make wireguard available in App Store China region.
in the same time there are dozens of free "Zodiak" and "Calendar" trial apps that charge 100+ usd a month after the first week....
The title reads like a not the onion post
How does AndOTP compare to FreeOTP+?
And so... What ? They removed some of my apps to for this reason.
Our freedoms are being taken away one by one by those who say they are protecting our freedoms just because of capitalism -> money -> greed.
The question should be: When will society accept that capitalism always will kill any form of "don't be evil". There is no choice.
The Apple/Play stores are essentially a totally broken implementation of something that had existed for over a decade before: package repositories. It's embraced and extended Linux/BSD package/ports trees, except without things like the ability to add a 3rd party repository with other authors signing keys, pin certain versions, etc.
https://battlepenguin.com/tech/android-fragmentation/#packag...
We could go on about how regular users wouldn't understand or care and blah blah blah and we'll keep getting software that's neutered, tracks us and becomes more like the proverbial car with the hood welded shut; where people who know about cars have to attach several sidecars just to keep our vehicle doing what we want it to do.
My guess would be some idiot in Legal got their panties in a bunch over nothing.
all process is manually done
Deleted. Wrong thread.
Unsurprising - Google obviously wants you to be within their walled garden. You could probably add an in-app purchase but this has been a known thing for a while now.
A lot of these threads feel like complaining that McDonalds doesn't offer more sauces, or that they don't let you leave their store with the sauce. It's their store, it's their sauce. I don't think you can even claim monopoly, because nobody needs to use these devices. We can still use dumb phones for voice and texting, and regular computers for the internet.
You have to accept that these are commercial products for commercial gain. They are not a product of or for a community. Massive corporations use these systems to create products that drive their revenue. They will do whatever works for the majority; the fact that a minority wants certain kinds of changes does not impact their bottom line, so why should they consider it? They do not care about your outrage or opinions, they care about cash.
When is an alternative Android play store coming?
To all the entrepreneurs reading this: please create one. To all the VCs reading this: please fund one.
It's badly needed. I heard Huawei is working on one but I wouldn't bet on it.
Google (Or Apple) is pretty serious regarding their app stores rules and regulations.
Google owns the app store. So, developers should abide rules imposed by Google although the rules do not seem reasonable all the time.
My suggestion is, developer can still implement in-app billing, removing "donation" wording. For the in-app item, make it as good-to-have feature like "unlocking additional app color theme".
With such, he will still abide the rule, yet able to get his monetary reward.
I know this will be against deeply against HNews but I'm open to discussion.
I don't see anything wrong with this. Charging vs Donations, I don't see what the difference is. It's people paying money for good/services/software. The primary difference is the open ended pricing model.
Google, Apple put up networks and there's value in that network. Whether someone chooses to release their app for free or charge money for it, that app is dictated by the network fees. This network is extremely powerful in terms of its distribution reach. Does it warrant 30%? That's what the market is willing to put up with, but if we're debating 30% - it should be for the whole network not just because someone has an open ended pricing model.
If this app is registered as a non-profit (which it did not look like based on the website?) then I am 100% in the wrong and do believe the app should be able to operate under different pricing schemes.
At a philosophical level - what is the difference between a free-to-use app that has open ended pricing vs a FOSS with donations?
If there is a difference, let's discuss it.
We merged a similar thread, "AndOTP Removed from the Google Play Store Due to Donation Link", into this one. Perhaps we'll update the title to cover both.
https://github.com/andOTP/andOTP/issues/396
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21269542