You are receiving this email because you have applications published in Android Market.
We'd like to let you know that there is a new Developer Distribution Agreement (DDA) for Android Market. The next time you sign in to the Android Market publisher website, you'll be asked to agree to these new terms before continuing. If you have not accepted the new DDA by Monday, August 23, 2010 12:00:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time, your application(s) will be unpublished from the Android Market.
You can view and accept the new agreement by visiting http://market.android.com/publish/ddaUpdate. Please do not reply to this message.
Thanks,
The Android Market Team
As I've only recently become an Android developer I sat up and took notice. Maybe more experienced developers get this kind of e-mail every month or so and are just used to agreeing to the new agreement without looking at the changes that were made. I had made the point of printing out my original DDA so took the time this morning to compare the original (retrieved from Google's UK DDA publishing point on 24th June 2010).
So, what did I find?...
Section 3.2: The URI specified for 'Transaction Fee' used to be http://market.android.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=112622 which works. The new document states a new URI as http://www.android.com/support/market/bin/answer.py?answer=112622 which does not work - or, at least, has not worked for the last three hours (between 6am and 9am GMT, 24 July 2010). This is what I get:
Hmmm... Maybe it's on the TODO list of somebody at Google for Monday morning?
Section 13.1: I don't have any legal qualifications of any sort but this is the first paragraph where there is a significant change. It talks about indemnification. They've juggled the stakeholders around a bit but from what I can see the main implication is that they've now added 'any Authorized Carrier' as an additional entity that we, the developers, need to be protecting from law suits!
Section 13.2: Brand new paragraph. How exciting! Looks like an attempt to protect Google and (more importantly) the payment processor (err, that'll be Google again then!) against tax authorities. That is we, the developers, indemnify them against claims in that respect too!
It's worth noting that the agreements I've been reading are specific to the UK and that Google do publish different documents for other jurisdictions (e.g. US and Australia).
I'm not sure how often Google update the DDA but the strict tone of the alert email makes me wonder if there's an ulterior motive here. Is this a handy way of 'booting' the various Spam developers who flood the Market. I wonder.
And, finally, if I'm going to get really picky...
Section 7.2 (c): Typo in both documents 'rgeulations' should be 'regulations'.
Section 15.1: Typo in both documents 'acse' should be 'case'.
But then in my limited exposure to the legal fraternity (getting contracts drafted for my business in respect of employment law) I've never been very impressed with their accuracy or ability to work the basic tools of the trade... like, for example, a word processor!
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