Mycelium is back!
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2vro8y/mycelium_and_google_play_recap_of_what_happened/On Tuesday, February 10, 2015, we received a note from Google in regards to our app, stating:
This is a notification that your application, Mycelium Bitcoin Wallet, with package ID com.mycelium.wallet, has been removed from the Google Play Store.
REASON FOR SUSPENSION: Violation of the paid and free provision of the Content Policy and section 3.5 of the Developer Distribution Agreement. Please refer to the Third Party Payments help center article for more information.
That particular section states:
3.5 You may also choose to distribute Products for free. If the Product is free, you will not be charged a Transaction Fee. You may not start charging a user for a Product that was initially free unless the charge correlates with an alternative version of the Product. The Payment Processor must process all fees a Developer receives for any version of a Product distributed via the Store.
Since that text is a bit vague, we were not sure exactly what it applied to in our wallet, and were guessing it was one of three things:
* LocalTrader fees
* Addition of the option to choose your bitcoin transaction fee that Google may have thought we charge
* Donation button
We requested for a more detailed explanation, and were told we would hear back within 72 hours.
On Thursday, February 12, 2015 we received a follow-up that stated the following:
We appreciate the opportunity to review your appeal.
Donations may only be collected within an app under specific conditions. The donation must be facilitated via a web browser, and any collection made through a secure payment system. Donations are only permitted for validated non-profit charitable organizations (for example, a validated 501(c)(3) charitable organization or the local equivalent). After a regular review, your app has been administratively suspended pending verification that you are an eligible and currently certified charitable organization.
In order for us to process your appeal, please attach a copy of your organization’s IRS determination letter or other acceptable proof in your reply to this notification. The provided information must indicate your status as a charitable organization.
Please be advised we will not be able to reinstate your application without the above documentation.
So, the issue turned out to be the donation button, which is the easiest thing to fix (we just remove the button), however, Google's stipulations of making us prove that we are a charity, "or else", made us think this would be very difficult to get out of. We replied with an explanation stating that
We were not aware of the fact that giving users an opportunity to donate to the developers is violating the agreement.
1) Bitcoin software is very sensitive to malware. If a software would imitate our brand and upload a backdoored version, users would unwillingly send money to it. This risk is partly mitigated by many links pointing to the existing package name
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mycelium.wallet - if we would create a new app, users would not know that this is not a malicious version. If the application stays blocked, we might see someone taking advantage of the situation and uploading a fake version under a new ID, to trick users into thinking a it was provided by us.
2) Leaving users on old versions is a potential security risk for their bitcoins. We do need to provide security updates, like in the case of the SecureRandom bug. The Android Developers described the problem at. We are constantly in touch with the security community and were able to provide patched versions minutes after the disclosure of the 0-day exploit. If there would be a similar incident and we had users stuck on the old version, users on Android would be at risk.
This morning, Google replied letting us know that they have accepted our appeal and have reinstated our app. We have removed the donation buttons from all our versions (beta and final), and just as a precaution set the LocalTrader fees to 0% as well. Our wallet app should be back up on Google Play by now, and we are glad to have this episode behind us. If you are a developer too, please keep this donation thing in mind as well.
And finally, thank you very much for all the support we have received from our users!
