By Keith Walsh
Starting June 1, buying ebooks and movies from Amazon on your Android device just got a lot more annoying.
It’s down to Google’s tax on digital purchases that use an app from their playstore, including all of Amazon’s apps but others as well. The tax, which is often 30 percent (but sometimes as low as 10 percent, according to arstechnica.com) wasn’t being enforced, but recently the people at Google decided to crac kdown. Google is warning they will shut down any account that doesn’t comply. It’s interesting to note that digital purchase of ebooks (Kindle) and music (Amazon Music) and movies (Amazon Prime Video) directly from Android apps have been discontinued on Apple iOS devices since 2011. Users of Android devices had a bit of a holiday since then.
It’s easy to see Amazon’s side in this – the surcharge is certainly not practicable. Now, when one tries to make a purchase of digital content on an app, they get a message referring them to Amazon.com on a regular browser. Not a life-changing hassle, but an annoying one, nonetheless. Epic Games, home of Fortnite, Unreal Engine and Rocket League is reportedly suing Google to try and reverse this, but don’t hold your breath. It’s David v Goliath, with odds on Goliath. If Amazon decides to take on Google, that’ll be another story entirely.
Google.com
Amazon.com
Epic Games
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