Is Android Launching In-App Carrier Billing?
Google posted a somewhat innocuous-sounding legal update to its Android Developer Terms and Conditions a few weeks ago:
In the spirit of transparency, we wanted to highlight the changes:
• In Section 13.1, “authorized carriers” have been added as an indemnified party.
• Section 13.2 is new in its entirety, covering indemnity for payment processors for claims related to tax accrual.
The developer community is anticipating that this may be a very big deal. It could give Apple’s iPhone a run in an area where it has remained unchallenged — in-app purchasing. The consensus is that Google will attempt to use carrier billing to emulate Apple’s iTunes platform.