Thursday, December 11, 2014

Google May Have Forced Amazon To Remove Its Main Shopping App From The Play Store Because Of Its Appstore Integration [Update]

Amazon's main shopping app has between 50 and 100 million downloads, but it's not showing up in the Play Store anymore. The listing remains if you have the direct link, but you won't see it in search results. Oddly, there's a new Amazon app called Amazon Shopping. It's the same exact app but guess what it doesn't have—the Appstore. It looks like Google may have laid down the law.

^{Left: old with Appstore, Right: new with no Appstore}

In case you weren't aware, Amazon updated its Android app a few weeks back with the ability to install other apps from its Appstore listings. This was part of the Instant Video rollout. Google has rules against distributing app stores in Google Play, so it seemed odd to let Amazon get away with that. There's a German blog post that seems to confirm Google forced the change, but we don't know for sure what's going on yet.

The new app has all the regular shopping tools, but the description lacks any mention of the Appstore. Looking at the navigation menu (see above) shows a lack of app and game listings. The new app has almost no downloads, though. It seems odd that Amazon would release a separate app rather than simply update the existing one (still listed on Amazon) to remove the Appstore feature, but here we are.

Update: Amazon's supposed statement to the aforementioned blog says this is in response to a policy change in September, but that doesn't seem connected. That's when Google started requiring addresses for paid apps and those with IAPs. Amazon doesn't have either, and has a business address anyway. The only difference between the two apps appears to be the Appstore. We're still looking into this and have reached out to Amazon.