Google Pulls VoiceMail App in Possible In-App Payment Move
In a move that could signal Google is taking a hard line on in-app payments similar to the way Apple has outlined new subscription rules, Google has pulled the popular Visual VoiceMail app from Android Market, citing a violation of the developer payment rules.
Context & Ripple Effects
This lands one week after Apple confirmed new subscription rules that force publishers toward Apple-billed payments, and it echoes a longer Apple-Google app-store rivalry: after the GV Mobile submission standoff in September 2010, Apple finally readmitted a Google Voice application to the App Store. Now the enforcement shoe is on Google's foot — Android Market has pulled the popular Visual VoiceMail app for violating developer payment rules.
The rumored reading — flagged as unconfirmed, not established fact — is that Google may be signaling a harder line on in-app payments of its own. If true, it collapses the framing that open Android was categorically friendlier to developers than Apple's gated store, and makes billing enforcement a two-platform story.
First-order effects
- Visual VoiceMail's developer loses Android Market distribution overnight for a payment-rules violation, with reinstatement contingent on complying with Google's billing terms.
- Android developers selling subscriptions or premium features now face the same enforced-billing uncertainty Apple just formalized, rather than treating Android as the enforcement-light alternative.
Second-order effects
- Apple and Google are converging on the same lever — controlling how users pay inside apps — which pushes developers to price billing fees into both stores' economics and strengthens each platform's negotiating position with publishers.
- Carrier- and third-party-billed services like visual voicemail become structurally exposed: any feature whose revenue flows outside the store's rails is now a takedown risk on either platform.
Third-order effects
- If enforcement hardens on both sides, app stores consolidate into de facto regulated payment rails, making store take rates and billing rules a standing point of developer friction — and potentially of regulator interest.
- The distinction between 'open' and 'closed' mobile ecosystems erodes at the billing layer even if the code stays open, shifting developer platform choice toward audience and tooling rather than payment freedom.
The trend: Mobile platforms are converging on enforced first-party in-app billing, turning app-store payment rules into the next battleground between Apple, Google, and their developers.