UIBuzz - Software and game development

Peter: 00:00

Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the UIBuzz podcast. In this one, we are talking app stores. And in particular, we are talking about that thing where they are asking you to declare whether you are a trader or not. And how did we get here?

Peter: 00:16

Well, we got here because this week, I got an email from Google saying, hey. You need to declare if you are a trader or not and along with providing all the appropriate details, and we'll get into that in a second. And you need to do that by February 2027. Otherwise, firstly, you cannot submit updates to your apps on the Google Play Store. And secondly, they might kick you out of the Play Store altogether.

Peter: 00:46

Now this is not a new thing if you have ever worked with the Apple platforms because Apple have had this in place for a while. The difference here is with Apple, this came about because of the European Union. Thank you, European Union, for making lives so difficult for everybody in the rest of the world. Now Google's doing it, but Google is doing this worldwide. And I thoroughly expect and I'm somewhat surprised actually that Apple is not doing this worldwide as well to just make this thing go away and problem solved.

Peter: 01:23

However, it's problem solved for Google. It's problem solved for Apple. It is not problem solved for us as developers, and I will explain why. Now for those of you who don't know what this is, what you've got to do is you have to go into the App Store, like I say, both platforms, and say, well, look. I'm a trader or I'm not a trader.

Peter: 01:49

And on the surface, it's simple. Underneath, it's complicated, but we're gonna keep it simple here. And, basically, if you have something you are charging money for or trying to charge money for, guess what? You are essentially a trader. If you're just doing it for stuff to put up there and put out for free, you can probably put that you're not a trader, and you'll be okay if you're not a company.

Peter: 02:17

Now that's the big thing here. Me, I'm not a company. I'm a me. And so many other people out there with apps or app stores, you're just one person or a couple of people, but, basically, you don't have an entire fully qualified legal entity of a company behind you. Now why does that matter?

Peter: 02:39

Well, because you have to disclose details that may or may not upset you. And for example, the one that upsets a lot of folks, and I totally get this, but I also see both sides of the argument, is you have to provide a phone number and an address. Now the thing with that is they will be displayed publicly on both Apple and Google platforms. And okay. You know what?

Peter: 03:12

Telephone number, not a huge deal. Right? But what if you put in your personal cell phone number or your home phone number or something like that? Well, guess what? You know what?

Peter: 03:24

You're putting it out there for the world, and I get it. We all get spam calls anyway, and you're probably saying, what bloody difference does it make? Hey. Your choice. Right?

Peter: 03:32

But my bigger concern with this, really, is the address. So if it's a company and it's got a location, you're fine. Just put that in. Right? And the same goes...

Peter: 03:46

Like, you could have a PO box, for example, and this is how a lot of people have gotten around this. And I don't mean that to say it subversively, but they've gotten around by getting a PO box, and you put that address, and that'll probably work for you. However, for everybody else, it means probably putting the address of where you live, your home address. Now do you really want that? I mean, I get it.

Peter: 04:12

This stuff can be found on the web. Right? Totally get that argument. But you are making it super easy for people because there's your personal address on the App Store, and they can do with that information whatever they want. And that's what I take issue with.

Peter: 04:31

Right? Now I do believe, of course, we are all entitled to privacy. But if you are charging somebody money for something, they should have a way of knowing who you are and getting in contact with you, and I think that's correct. But it's not like I've got the personal address of some huge corporation that can drive up to their home address tomorrow and say, hey. I got a problem with your app.

Peter: 04:56

Right? And that's kind of... I know that's an exaggeration, but that's essentially what we're saying here. And that's what I take issue with is the privacy and safety and protection of folks who are just one person, a couple of people. And you do this, and maybe you don't make any money at all because you've never had any sales, or maybe you make a few dollars or a bunch of money, whatever it is.

Peter: 05:20

But at the end of the day, the rule applies to everybody. So if you're just doing this as some kind of side gig, side hustle, side hobby, whatever, you know, and you're making maybe, I don't know, let's just say a few dollars a month or whatever, a few dollars a year, You have to play by the same rules. And I don't have a problem with the rules in general, but I have a problem with... Look. I was just doing this to see if I could make some money and potentially turn this into a thing for, you know, maybe whatever purpose.

Peter: 05:54

I wanna quit my day job or, you know, I just wanna make some extra money or whatever. And you gotta put all those details out there regardless. That's kind of the bit that bothers me. Now, again, you could argue either side of this argument. There are people who are like, whatever.

Peter: 06:09

I don't care. They can find me anyway. Yeah. But why make things easy for people? That's always my thing.

Peter: 06:15

Right? App stores are scraped like crazy for information. How do I know this? I know this because someone reached out to me, wanting to publish my game that is not even available to the public and is only privately listed for my own testing purposes on the Google Play Store. And yet somehow, they still got all of my information, all of the information about the game, and they wanna publish it when it doesn't even exist in a public space anywhere.

Peter: 06:48

I know. Go figure. How do I know that that's where they got it from? Because it had the app ID, you know, com.peterwhidom.whatever, for the application that's unique to the app. And so that information can be got by many different means, and that's kind of again why I'm taking issue with this.

Peter: 07:10

So just wanted to put that out there for you all in case you're not aware of it that Google is now doing this as well. It's up to you. Right? I'm not gonna give you any advice. You gotta decide what you wanna do about this.

Peter: 07:22

On the one hand, shouldn't be much of a problem, but on the other hand, someone could make this a problem for you, and that's what I'm getting at here. Right? My right to privacy, but also, yes, I agree with the rules, and and it says I've gotta do this. So, you know, that's where I'm coming from. Again, up to you to decide.

Peter: 07:45

That's what I got for you in this episode, folks. Just wanted to share that since it was a timely thing. That's it. Reach out to me at Peter Witham.com

Peter: 07:53

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