Google today revised the announcement in the Developer Console telling us all that starting tomorrow, Sept. 30, physical addresses will be required. Those addresses will be available on the app detail page in Google Play. The field appears to be live in the dev console, and you can add an address now.
Here's the deal:
Beginning September 30, 2014, to comply with consumer protection laws, you need to add a physical address to your Settings page. After you've added an address, it will be available on your app's detail page to all users on Google Play. If your physical address changes, make sure to update your information on your Settings page.If you have paid apps or apps with in-app purchases, as the seller of that content, it's mandatory to provide a physical address where you can be contacted. If you don't provide a physical address on your account, it may result in your apps being removed from the Play Store.
Google reminds us that the address is mandatory if you have in-app purchases or paid apps. (Our Mobile Nations apps are all free, and sure enough we're not required to add an address, even though we see the field to do so.)
We've seen many a headline recently claiming that developers would be forced to share their home addresses if they work from home or don't otherwise have a traditional workplace. But today's revision makes it pretty clear — a physical address is what's required. The words "home address" don't appear anywhere. Presumably a PO box or PMB will suffice (yes, we're aware of inconsistencies in the wording in some of Google's legalese) — they're "physical" addresses, after all. We're also not sure what'll happen if you fudge the whole thing and just list some random address. We're also not sure that we'd want to find out.
Anyhoo, it's live now. Time to add some digits.
More: Google Developer Distribution Agreement; European Commission (pdf)
