Google decided to shut down all the “Payments API” because of many fraud reports. “Payments API” is the system that Google uses to handle its payments on the Web Store, for instance, monthly subscriptions, free trials, and one-time fees for commercial chrome extensions. That means all the developers trying to monetize their Chrome extensions will have to use other payment-handling techniques.
Google to terminate all the Paid Chrome Web Store Extensions
According to Google, now the developers cannot make the latest paid extensions from Monday onwards. However, this is very bad news for all the extension developers. Since March, this policy has already been in place, and Google decided not to bring it back on. Furthermore, this policy follows a short-term suspension of publishing all the paid Chrome extensions in January 2020 after Google observed a rapid increase in the fraudulent transactions used to take advantage of the users. Google applies this policy to save its users from further fraud. Now Google is requesting all the web extension developers to move their extensions from Google and try to use other non-Web Store payment techniques. Mentioned below is the full timeline. 21st September 2020: No one can make new in-app items or paid extensions. This change is now permanent. 1st December 2020: All the free trials are now disabled. Moreover, all the in-app free trial options will show an error and all the “Try Now” buttons will be no longer visible on the screens. 1st February 2021: All your existing in-app purchases and items are not allowed to charge money using the Chrome Web store payment method. In the Future: The licensing API of Google will not allow you to control your users’ license status. This year, these are not the outstanding changes to extensions that Google has made. Google has updated many policies in April to reduce fraud and spammy extensions. The Google Policy includes banning many extensions that will do the same fraud and will not allow the developers to change reviews to get good placement or extensions. Also Read: Let’s Dive in the Full Leaked Specs of Google Pixel 5
