

Google Removes Amazon’s App Listing from Google Play Search - ethanhunt_
http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/11/google-removes-amazons-app-listing-from-google-play-search-following-addition-of-appstore-instant-video-integrations/

======
HarrietJones
By and large, Google (and the Google Play Store) play nice with other content
distributors. Amazon don't.

I installed instant Video a week ago, and I was astonished at the lengths it
went to to enable the Amazon App store. I can see why Amazon may do this, but
from my perspective, it was just too dangerous. Instant Video and the Amazon
App were uninstalled 10 hours later.

I've a 30 day eval of Amazon Prime. If I could legitimately install an app
that had chromecast abilities, I would probably have stayed with Prime. As it
is, I'm back to Netflix and the Google Play store.

~~~
what_ever
Do you think Google will launch Fire TV/stick support for Google Play
Movies/TV/Music in future?

~~~
HarrietJones
Well they just launched youtube on Apple TV, so I don't see why not. There's
an issue with having to buy the content on a separate platform (See Comixology
for an example of this), but otherwise - yeah. I can see no problem with
Google providing software to Amazon that allows content to be consumed.

------
arasmussen
More like "Amazon broke Google's terms of service and consequentially got
removed from Google's app store"

~~~
mingfli
Google changed the terms of the Developer Distribution Agreement, I don't
believe Amazon was violating Google's terms when they initially put it in the
play store. This article has more details:
[http://www.androidpolice.com/2014/12/11/google-may-have-
forc...](http://www.androidpolice.com/2014/12/11/google-may-have-forced-
amazon-to-remove-its-main-shopping-app-from-the-play-store-because-of-its-
appstore-integration/)

~~~
dragonwriter
> Google changed the terms of the Developer Distribution Agreement, I don't
> believe Amazon was violating Google's terms when they initially put it in
> the play store.

Whether or not they were depends on what the "primary purpose" of the app was,
which is very difficult to objectively determine (since there is no reason
that the primary purpose has to be the most prominent function.)

Google changed the terms of the agreement in a way which made them much less
ambiguous, which made the Amazon app _clearly_ in violation rather than merely
_arguably_ in violation.

~~~
Dylan16807
Considering the menu option wasn't there for a long time, and was trivially
removed from the new app, I don't see how anyone could argue it was the
primary purpose.

~~~
fpgeek
Well, considering how long they were separate and the little or no user
benefit that came from merger of their app store and Amazon's other shopping
app (especially post-Amazon SSO), it seems pretty clear that the primary
purpose of the merged app was to sneak an otherwise prohibited app store past
Google's terms, so...

~~~
Dylan16807
That's quite a stretch. The purpose of a particular update to an app is not
the primary purpose of the app itself.

------
commandar
I almost wonder if this was Amazon's end-game all along. I was somewhat
surprised that they launched Instant Video in the way they did since
installing apps within apps has been, AFAIK, non-kosher with the Play Store
all along.

I'm not sure what their exact reasoning is, beyond getting to lay blame on
Google, but I find it hard to believe that Amazon would accidentally fall
afoul of Play Store guidelines.

~~~
fpgeek
I think their plan was to see how far they could get twisting the Play Store
guidelines using the extra leverage they got from the long-awaited Instant
Video app release. From their perspective, the worst case was returning to the
previous status quo, so what did they have to lose?

------
w1ntermute
Does anybody even use the Amazon app store for anything other than the free
app deal they have every day? I just don't see why a user would prefer it.

~~~
benologist
There's a few reasons people _should_ use their store:

1) devs can set apps as free and there's almost always some decent stuff
available for free / completely free, this is something google actively
prevents by forcing free to be a permanent price change

2) you can buy 'coins' to spend on/in apps + games implementing amazon's
services also give you coins back when you purchase which can give you a 20 -
30% discount all the time, this is especially great for all the expensive
little kids games I get for my daughter

3) as a developer we've done over $70k in sales this year on the amazon store

The only thing it sucks at is being the only store on amazon's devices.

~~~
duiker101
the 70k number is interesting, would it be possible for you to give a rough
value in comparison to the Play Store?

~~~
benologist
Amazon is much, much smaller (just 10s of millions of us+uk people I think)
but keyword optimization alone can get you started whereas play is much harder
to get any traffic on, especially for free.

------
novas0x2a
Good. When I traveled out of the US, I noticed my phone battery life was
terrible. Inspecting via catlog, I noticed that the amazon appstore (which I
didn't actually have installed directly) was hitting an amazon url in an
extremely tight loop, and getting a 403 Forbidden every time (you know, one of
the errors that means "don't try again without fixing yourself").

My only explanation is that the amazon appstore has some sort of geographic
restriction on the server-side, and the app wasn't written to handle that. I
couldn't tell which app was actually responsible, so I just disabled or
uninstalled every Amazon app, even though I find some of them useful (rapid
package delivery notifications are pretty helpful in a city, when your package
is probably sitting on the stoop unprotected). Doing so restored my battery
life.

Hopefully this means Google is watching for Amazon's overreach now, and I'll
be able to safely get my notifications again.

~~~
merrua
They leave your package outside your door? That's not ok.

------
zobzu
Kind of funny to note that the "evil" microsoft never did any of this with the
Windows model.

Imagine if Windows would make it impossible to install Steam for example..
unthinkable.

But if its Google its okay.

~~~
Oletros
Google is not making impossible to install Amazon App Store

------
akshat
While this is Google's App Store and they can do pretty much anything they
want, having such rules is simply anti-competitive. It is as good as saying
that on Google Chrome, they will not allow people to visit Firefox.

Google has a 90+% of smartphone marketshare in many parts of the world, and
this is abusing their power. Amazon is not installing malware or breaking
copyright. Everything else should be allowed.

~~~
fpgeek
Amazon's store absolutely is allowed. Users just have to go to Amazon's
website to download and install it for themselves. Considering that using
Amazon's store means trusting not only Amazon and the store app, but every app
installed via their store (almost certainly including some Google has never
seen), this is an entirely reasonable requirement.

------
spacefight
And therefore paving the way to even more malware in their very own ecosystem:

"Users who visit this site are asked to take a series of steps similar to
what’s required with downloading the Amazon Appstore standalone app. That is,
they have to request a link to the app download, then change their device’s
security settings to allow for its installation."

Brilliant!

~~~
akount
But not allowing that would be blocking all third party installs - one of the
good features on Android.

~~~
dollaaron
It's a great feature for people who know what they're doing, but you probably
don't want all Android users to allow third party installs- it just opens
people up to too much risk.

~~~
benologist
There's no risk. You still have to _find_ APKs to install, if you download
from official sources there's no higher risk than downloading from app stores.

Amazon's been recommending + allowing it for years, along with every operating
system for decades.

~~~
Aldo_MX
At least in my country (Mexico), the advertisements in several ad networks
like AdSense often contain malicious code which redirects you to a website
telling:

"your version of WhatsApp is outdated, please update to the current version",
and after a countdown (or the click of a link), it downloads a malicious apk
to your phone.

I'm completely disappointed, since too many websites use AdSense, and
sometimes I can't even check a website, because the redirection is too
aggressive.

I understand that the people behind these shady advertisements use aggressive
cloaking (ex. only injecting the malicious redirection when you are under a
mobile network) to avoid being discovered.

