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giving external developers the opportunity to pay $25 and verify their identities
Extortion too
this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2026
179 points (97.9% liked)
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Having been in the app store development community for a decade, this isn't honestly the WORST thing. So much malware gets pushed now it's a fucking gha-tto. This isn't the worst thing to combat, though I believe there should be a FREE tier for Open Source or otherwise community-driven apps to be released on with zero barriers - AGAIN, oenisn game sort of verification which could be cheap, reliable and FREE.
For me the worst part is giving Google a phone number and copy of id document. Not a problem with companies, but for individuals it is huge.
If you use your Google account to log into your Android phone, they already have your number, tied to you.
Yes, but they don't publish it.
What is oenisn? Misspelled Genshin? Open-ish? Leninism? Bosnian? Penis?
Onanism?
I see a lot more malware and apps from bad actors on the Google Play Store than I do on F-droid.
Its wild that they say this is to prevent people from getting scammed, meanwhile there is a ton of shit in the Play store that steals peoples info, mines crypto in the background or pops up ads every 4 seconds. But yea, this is for everyone's safety.....
Why are you arguing with their obviously smoke and mirrors pr when it's apparent this move has nothing to do with this line of reasoning?
It is not wild in their eyes, they need to find a way to justify it after all.
But I think that this way they are opening the door to the possibility to be sued or to be considered responsable for what is on the play store. It is not a stretch to go from "I need to verify your identity" to "you are responsible for what you accept to put on the store". They want control, they will get even responsability.
I mean that's not a great counter argument if they are saying that this measure is supposed to combat that. It isn't, it's about control and money, but still.
supported app stores
EU Gatekeeper investigation when? And will it matter, after it's established fact? Merely cost of doing business?
Phones should be getting more open not closed off.
Unfortunately, less than 1% of people will even notice.
We should buy Linux phones not android ones... But consumers prefer them for some reasons.... Afaik simulating apks should be trivial
Uncertainty. People don’t have the money to spend on a phone they’re not certain will work for them for a few years.
People will buy what they're told through ads. It's that simple.
Apparently there will be a way to disable this crap: https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2026/03/android-developer-verification.html?m=1
Still fuck Google, but at least there's a way to opt-out.
For now
Go fuck yourself Google, stop making everything worse!
If you're a developer who goes into the verification scheme, then they should be blacklisted in the developer community for life.