Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Google has expanded protections against regional pricing abuse on the Play Store.
- Developers can now offer localized pricing and promotion without risking revenue losses from exploitative users.
- Previously, users would use a VPN to change their location to regions where app subscriptions are cheaper, to score a more affordable subscription. This loophole is now closed.
These days, every app, service, platform, and their dog wants to charge a subscription, so we don’t fault users for trying to find the best deal to lower their monthly bill. Some users resorted to taking advantage of regional pricing differences to score the lowest price on their subscription, like using a VPN to subscribe to Spotify in lower-priced regions like Nigeria and India. However, Google has caught wind of these tricks and is now clamping down on such practices.
As part of a Google I/O session on maximising ROI on Google Play, the company announced that it has expanded pricing arbitrage protection to more countries. Google is also automatically detecting and blocking abusive purchases that exploit regional price differences.
This is great news for app developers, as they can now confidently offer localized pricing and promotions while still safeguarding their revenue.
This closes down a loophole that arguably existed in a grey area for users. You can still subscribe to an app or service with your localized pricing structure, but you can no longer abuse the regional pricing difference in your favor. It remains to be seen if such users would skip the subscription, shell out the extra money, or turn to more unethical means to get what they need.
Further, for app developers wanting to implement limited-availability content, Google Play is also providing granular control with payment location restrictions in the Play Console. Google has also enhanced protection against free trial interpricing abuse for subscriptions. All these close down the various abusive loopholes people have found over the years. While such users will rue the changes, these protections help strengthen the Play Store ecosystem and invite more developers to participate, which is generally good for the rest of us.
