The Google Play Store functioned for most of its existence with a monumentally unscalable level of democratic anarchy. A calculator app could be sitting next to a banking tool built by a multinational corporation — uploaded by a teenager in his basement. This openness was responsible for both innovation and a playground for ambiguity. So, who is the creator of that “Instant Loan” application? Where is that “Health Tracker” storing your data — on a secure server or with a third-party broker? Well, Google is like we have had it. Now, in a wide-ranging policy update, the tech giant has announced that makers of specific high-risk app categories—namely, financial, health, and government services—will have to sign up as verified organisations.
This is a shift away from the “move fast and break things” era and the ushering in of a new phase of digital accountability. And the good thing is that it definitely draws a line: if you want to work with people’s money or their health history, you can no longer be a ghost.
The Verification Vise
At one point, an individual developer account could do nearly anything. You sent an email, paid a couple, and it was on. A new mandate compels a new structure. Publishing a high-risk app now requires a D-U-N-S number (a nine-digit identifier for businesses) and corporate documentation.
Almost like the difference between a food truck and a restaurant. Street vendors who fucking sell you garbage will just pack all their shit and disappear.
A store has a lease, an address for registering an enterprise, and legal liabilities. In other words, the version of Google build goes, “developers, we told ya show us your lease.” This action is meant to counter the rise of predatory lending apps and counterfeit government service portals in the Android ecosystem, especially in emerging markets. And forcing an organisation to tie its legal identity to the app provides a mile-wide trail of breadcrumbs for regulators and law enforcement, says Google.
Impact on the Indie Developer
It wins for consumer safety, but it also now poses a very high barrier to entry for honest, independent developers. Imagine a very talented coder building a non-profit health aid app to give low-income diabetes patients a leg up by helping them track insulin. They can’t just upload the app from their personal account anymore under the new rules. They need to set up a business and navigate red tape to get their code into customers’ hands.
It’s a tattle-tale example of “the bad apples ruin the barrel”. The friction is intentional. Google hopes the added work will scare away scammers, who thrive on speed and anonymity. But it also risks killing off the type of grassroots innovation we saw during the first few years of Android. The barrier to entry just went from a knee-high fence to a ten-foot wall, so we may not see as many experimental apps in these categories.
Restoring Trust in the Ecosystem
And in the end, this is a survival policy for the Play Store. Increasing Privacy Awareness: People will be much less likely to download apps they do not trust. But if the Play Store is seen as just a hotbed of malware and scams, users will find another place to download, or stop downloading altogether.
To avoid another situation like this, Google is attempting to give software a kind of “blue checkmark” by verifying that the organisation is who it claims to be. With a tax filing app, you want it to know it is from the tax authority or an accredited accounting practice, not one that looks similar and is designed to leak social security numbers. This transition will be messy. This will prompt a backlash from developers and likely lead to the elimination of thousands of older apps whose developers are unable or unwilling to comply. However, in the long term, it changes the app store from a marketplace to a proper shopping mall.
