By Herman Lai, posted Jun 25, 2011 at 4:48 PM, 594 views,

Google and Apple Respects Taiwan Authority Over App Refund Policy [UPDATED]

Previously, Google Taiwan and Apple Asia received letters from the Taiwanese authority demanding both companies for explanation of why smartphone users in Taiwan are losing benefit under their app refund policy.

UPDATE 2:

After we heard Google was fined, the official had made a statement in regard of the incident (translated by TNW):

Taipei City Government in the ongoing deliberations with the refund mechanism, we will suspend the payment of Taiwan application services. Android Market has been paid for the appreciation of the application period to provide 15 minutes, consumers can purchase if not satisfied within the time limit for refund. From this mechanism we observed several phenomena: the user can immediately get paid via the online update application, and most users want refund will apply for a refund within minutes. We believe this policy will not only help the consumer purchase decision will help the Taiwanese software developers to effectively manage business.

UPDATE:

This is unexpected. According to the latest report from The Economic Time said,

“Google had already been fined by the Taipei City Government of Tw$1,000,000 (around $34,600) for refusing to grant customers a seven-day trial period when they download apps for their cell phones.”

This is confirmed by the head of a consumer protection at the city government, where they said “Google refused to change its rules”, and considered Google is acting “unfriendly”.

At the moment, we still haven’t hear any responses from Google Taiwan Official of why they make such decision. But the Taiwan authority said that Google plans to send official from the US to Taiwan in Thursday for further negotiation. Moreover, if Google persists not to change its app refund policy by July 1, then the official imposes a similar fine on Google.

Well, we did mention previously (Below) that Google had already planned to change its refund policy, but what makes them to change their mind?

Many Taiwanese users complained to the Taipei City Government that they cannot get refund when they found the downloaded apps they had paid for unsatisfactory.

According to WantChinaTimes,

The brouhaha started when local users complained that an iPhone app called Super Cell Phone Tracker, which they bought online from the Apple’s App Store for US$1.99, did not work at all and there was no way they could ask for a refund. According to the App Store description, the tracker program is a joke and intended only for fun. However, not all buyers read the description before downloading the software.

Therefore, the local authority asked Apple to comply with the Taiwanese law, where the trial use period must have at least seven-days for consumer products. Apple had already agreed with the government.

The same policy also applied on Google’s Android market as well. The government previously had already considered to fine Google for around NT$60,000-NT$1.5 million (US$2,100-US$52,000) as Google did not make any response. But before the authority made the final decision, Google’s lawyer made a call to the authority said they agreed with the policy on Friday. And now the government decided to postpone the issuance of fines until Monday (June 27), pending Google’s response.

Wonder what takes Google so long to make their decision?

Source: WatchChinaTimes
Image Credit: HTC Phone