Google Fined by Taipei Over App Refund

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It looks as though Google is in trouble in Taipei for not following the law regarding app refunds. The law in Taiwan requires a seven day trial period on all apps, while Google currently only gives you 15 minutes to decide. Making matters worse for Google, Apple has already agreed to the seven day stipulation.

"Google refused to change its rules," Betty Chen, the head of a consumer protection at the city government, said. Apple changed its rules. Under the terms of service for Google?s Android Market, consumers are allowed only 15 minutes to decide whether they want a refund after buying an app online. In reaction, Google suspended the sale of its paid apps to Taiwan consumers, according to Chen, who described the move as "unfriendly".
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If you do business or pleasure in a country you follow it's law. But I already know what some of you guys are going to say. Oh well, it'll be amusing at least.
 
Seven days? Thats a LONG time. Plenty of time to play through a new game and then return it. I could see a 24 hour period, but a week is way to long to see if it works on your phone or not.

But ... thats the law over there. They can follow it or stop selling. The decision is ultimately theirs.
 
Azhar said:
If you do business or pleasure in a country you follow it's law. But I already know what some of you guys are going to say. Oh well, it'll be amusing at least.
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The question is really if the transaction(s) technically happens in the country. If anything the transaction occurs at the app server. For example, I've purchased items from online retailers, but often did not have to pay any taxes. If my purchases were in my country, and subject to my laws that would be impossible.

Yes I believe the fault is with Taipai, they must adapt to the world they want to partake in, not force the entire world to do what they believe is correct now that they would like to join.
 
Does the trial period have to give you access to the full app, though? What if the trial gives you access to the first 5 levels of the game, and then you have to pay to unlock the other 95, for example?
 
Demon10000 said:
Seven days? Thats a LONG time. Plenty of time to play through a new game and then return it. I could see a 24 hour period, but a week is way to long to see if it works on your phone or not.
But ... thats the law over there. They can follow it or stop selling. The decision is ultimately theirs.
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Most of the apps aren't games. Theres a thing we all seem to fall for every so often ,its called media hype. Seven days is a cooling off period to make sure you really need the app. We have a law here if a sales men comes a knocking and hypes you into buying something you don't need, you have two weeks to break the contract, that includes getting hypered(LOL) into buying a cell phone in a store or anything that involves a contract. Thank goodness a EULA is considered a contract. How many times have you read here how shitty a game was that you purchased for 60 bucks because of the media hype and you felt sucker punched and you would love to have returned it.
 
Kalabalana said:
The question is really if the transaction(s) technically happens in the country. If anything the transaction occurs at the app server. For example, I've purchased items from online retailers, but often did not have to pay any taxes. If my purchases were in my country, and subject to my laws that would be impossible.

Yes I believe the fault is with Taipai, they must adapt to the world they want to partake in, not force the entire world to do what they believe is correct now that they would like to join.
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Every country have different laws. It's not like Taipei's the only one with laws different from the US. They're suing, so their laws are exposed to you and I.

It's not impossible for Google to enforce Taipei's law within their app store. It's no different from how Apple does it, or how Netflix enforces policies where if it detects another nation's IP address trying to go to netflix.com it'll deny them. No different from Newegg separating Canada and the United States.

Google has a history of thumbing their nose at other country's laws. Remember China and Google's threat to pull out if China tried to filter them? Look how that worked out.

Google isn't the government and they need to get off their high horse and follow other country's law if they wish to do business. If they disagree with the law they're welcome to join their revolution or leave the country.
 
I guess Google needs to start lobbying government officials in Taiwan. I mean a law that protects consumers. It can't be happening.
 
Azhar said:
If you do business or pleasure in a country you follow it's law. But I already know what some of you guys are going to say. Oh well, it'll be amusing at least.
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Yup, and yanno what, they decided they aren't going to do business in that country.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Yup, and yanno what, they decided they aren't going to do business in that country.
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Yeah and it'll be interesting to see what it'll mean for Google in the long run, seeing how Taiwan is a big deal when it comes to computers.
 
Well, at least they have consumer protection laws for their citizens. Here, you get boned with an over-hyped, crappy program and have no recourse.
 
Azhar said:
Yeah and it'll be interesting to see what it'll mean for Google in the long run, seeing how Taiwan is a big deal when it comes to computers.
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True, but in the same way you can't fault a country for demanding a company follows it's rules you can't blame the company for not wanting to deal with that country. For that countries political spokesman to say this is "unfriendly" is pretty silly, Don't get me wrong I'd love to get steam games or other DD type games where I can play them for a week and then decide decided I'd like a refund, but from a business standpoint it does seem quite silly to do.

Similar thing happened in China, unfortunately Google saw the larger picture and happily complied with China's filtering.
 
sfsuphysics said:
True, but in the same way you can't fault a country for demanding a company follows it's rules you can't blame the company for not wanting to deal with that country. For that countries political spokesman to say this is "unfriendly" is pretty silly, Don't get me wrong I'd love to get steam games or other DD type games where I can play them for a week and then decide decided I'd like a refund, but from a business standpoint it does seem quite silly to do.

Similar thing happened in China, unfortunately Google saw the larger picture and happily complied with China's filtering.
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Heh...

Google won't comply with a democratically elected government's consumer protection laws.

But they WILL comply with a communist dictatorships demands to censor results from their citizenry.

Do no evil, indeed? ;)
 
Apple sided with the consumer? Well this is a first.

Google's 15min app return policy can shove it. That is nowhere near enough time. Didn't it used to be a 24hour return period? Seven days is rather long though... =/

@ the Google in china complaints: Google held out against the Chinese Government's demands for a long ass time, threatened to leave, and then eventually routed traffic unfiltered through HK. All for the sake of the consumers and of course, and probably more importantly, their continued business there. I don't see where your complaints carry any sort of strong validity in this case, even if they eventually caved to the government's demands.
 
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