Google is on to your shenanigans: You won’t be able to use this VPN pricing trick anymore
Google is now automatically detecting and blocking abusive purchases that exploit regional price differences.
- Google has expanded protections against regional pricing abuse on the Play Store.
- Developers can now offer localized pricing and promotion without risking revenue losses from exploitative users.
- Previously, users would use a VPN to change their location to regions where app subscriptions are cheaper, to score a more affordable subscription. This loophole is now closed.
These days, every app, service, platform, and their dog wants to charge a subscription, so we don’t fault users for trying to find the best deal to lower their monthly bill. Some users resorted to taking advantage of regional pricing differences to score the lowest price on their subscription, like using a VPN to subscribe to Spotify in lower-priced regions like Nigeria and India. However, Google has caught wind of these tricks and is now clamping down on such practices.
As part of a Google I/O session on maximising ROI on Google Play, the company announced that it has expanded pricing arbitrage protection to more countries. Google is also automatically detecting and blocking abusive purchases that exploit regional price differences.
