Google's Requirement for Developers to Be Verified Threatens App Store F-Droid

Summary

Google’s Requirement For All Android Developers To Register And Be Verified Threatens To Close Down Open Source App Store F-Droid from the formerly-open-ecosystem dept It would be something of an understatement to say that Alphabet, Google’s holding company, is big and successful. Some Wall Street analysts are even predicting it could become the world’s most valuable corporation. Of course, even for business giants, enough is never enough. They always want more: more money, more power. As part of that tendency, Google seems to have decided that F-Droid, the free and open source app store for the Android platform, is a threat to the official Google Play Store that needs to be neutralized. At least that is likely to be the effect of Google’s announcement that it will require all Android developers to register and be verified before their apps can be allowed to run on certified Android devices. A post on the F-Droid blog explains what the problem is: In addition to demanding payment of a registration fee and agreement to their (non-negotiable and ever-changing) terms and conditions, Google will also require the uploading of personally identifying documents, including government ID, by the authors of the software, as well as enumerating all the unique “application identifiers” for every app that is to be distributed by the registered developer. According to the blog post, the impact on the F-Droid project would be severe: the developer registration decree will end the F-Droid project and other free/open-source app distribution sources as we know them today, and the world will be deprived of the safety and security of the catalog of thousands of apps that can be trusted and verified by any and all. F-Droid’s myriad users will be left adrift, with no means to install — or even update their existing installed — applications. Google says registration is needed to “better protect users from repeat bad actors spreading malware and scams”. Registration “creates crucial account...