New Delhi: Google has removed the official Amazon app from the Google Play store after Amazon let slip that the app features its own "hidden" app store. This is now allowed because of Google's guidelines.
When Amazon updated its primary Android app with an "Apps & Games" section, it allowed access to Amazon's library of applications without sidestepping Google Play. The hidden app allowed people to download apps and games as well - something that Google Play Store is meant for itself. This led to Amazon's app store mysteriously disappearing from Google Play this week.
“We launched a new Amazon App for Android Phones on September 9 that provides an award-winning mobile shopping experience, enables customers to discover and purchase all of Amazon's digital catalog, and provides customers access to the Prime Instant Video player and unlimited streaming of over 40,000 movies and TV episodes. Google subsequently changed their Developer Distribution Agreement on September 25. As a result, we removed the app from Google Play and published the Amazon Shopping app," Amazon said in a statement.
Previous versions of the distribution rules only banned apps whose "primary purpose" was app distribution. However, Amazon argued that its app had a different primary purpose than to offer apps, and so, it succeeded with planting a competing app store in the Play Store.
