How to persuade Google to accept Bitcoin on the Android Market?

[Vandroiy]

The topic says it. Where I live, the market payment is just annoying. Just give me a simple Bitcoin target address, I pay, I get the application. That is how simple it should be.

Now, Google doesn't have much to loose trying this, and certainly a few Bitcoin geeks would like this and use the market more. But how can we make the guys at Google understand that? Blah blah new payment systems blah, a Google employee even worked on the Java bitcoin implementation, but the business guys there successfully ignore Bitcoin.

It's totally the same target audience as Android. Yay open-source hack-together sell first finish later, and it worked great with Android. I'm sure this would be win-win for both Google and the Bitcoin community. So, should we make a petition? Is there some site where Google asks people what kind of features they would like? If enough people nag them, they might look into it and notice they should've jumped on this boat a long time ago.

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[kiba]

I think the best way to win google over is not a massive petitioning effort but to let google engineers work the bitcoin idea deep inside google.

[grue]

bitcoin sponsored with ads and data mining.

[Vandroiy]

Engineers within Google may be helpful, but will they finish the job? It might be worth thinking about more ways to get Bitcoin onto Google's radar.

This would seriously increase the success chance of Bitcoin. The Android market is large! Even if just a fraction of it were to be paid in BTC, the situation would be incomparably better than it is now.

Does anyone want to try an estimate of a market size and reach comparison Android Market vs Bitcoin economy? This is huge, possibly it would be the final breakthrough to reach "critical mass".

[Mike Hearn]

You don't need to get it on Googles radar. Bitcoin is already there.

Adding payment types to Google is hard work and has a ton of requirements around legal compliance, PR, tax, etc. The bulk of the work in adding new countries, let alone new payment types, to the Android Market is (as far as I know) tax and compliance related.

Also, there isn't much point in having the ability to pay with Bitcoins on the Android market whilst there's no way to hold coins on those devices. An Android wallet with a nicely defined intents API is the first step. Feel free to help out with that effort.

[em3rgentOrdr]

No transaction fees.

[yunk3r]

ya i agree with the petition idea. also since almost every one who works at Google is an engineer they would be more open to the idea. some one just needs to start the petition.

[Vandroiy]

Adding payment types to Google is hard work and has a ton of requirements around legal compliance, PR, tax, etc. The bulk of the work in adding new countries, let alone new payment types, to the Android Market is (as far as I know) tax and compliance related.

But that's the point! Who cares? I'll just buy at Google Liechtenstein, or Google Taiwan or wherever they think tax regulations are neat! They only have to care when they move the money into a problematic country, and that can probably be done in some kind of simplified batch operation.

But if an application seller accepts BTC, only the earnings by Google will have to care about taxes at all, the rest can be done in any country on the planet! Just send on the BTC to the company who made the application and let them care about taxes!

And the greatest part: the market will work for anybody, everywhere!

[gongcheng]

Sounds like great.