The popular app for Visual Voice Mail has been pulled up by Google from its Android market after citing a dispute for developer payment rule violations. This move is being seen by many as the company taking a hardline stance similar to Apple’s newly announced application subscription rules for its own app market. No details about the specific nature of the violations by the app developers have been released as of yet, however the developers of Visual Voice Mail believe that this move has come as a result of the app not using Google’s own Checkout services for the processing of in-app payments.
PhoneFusion, the developers of the app, were notified by Google on Monday that they were about to take off the very popular voice mail app which had been a part of the market for more than two years on grounds of violation of the Developer Content Policy. When the app developers based in Fort Lauderdale asked the Google Android team about the details of their actions, they replied in an email saying that the section 3.3 of the Developer Distribution Agreement of the Android Market, which covers pricing and payments under its ambit, had been violated by the developer.
The EVP of PhoneFusion, Jonathan Hollander, said that Googlev has not been able to clearly explain the nature of the violation and that the app hadn’t been changed much recently except a bug fix which came out some weeks ago. He asserted his belief that this is a ploy from Google to force the app to use its Checkout payment service for processing its transactions. It still isn’t clear whether section 3.3 explicitly states that all apps are supposed to process their payments through the Checkout service. Despite the voicemail app being free, the claims of violations stem from the payment the users are charged for various exclusive services.
