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According to EU refund law, if a person releases an app on the Google Play Store, does the person need to even give the payment he received back? Can one specify no refunds by putting it after the app name like "The App (nonrefundable irrefundable)"? How will a person determine whether a user's app download has begun? Does the download start as soon as purchase is completed? I've never bought an app, so I'm not sure.

Can EU users buy everything, ask for refunds, then repeat again and again?

Is blocking EU users sufficient? Do such laws apply in other countries?

Assume the app works as described.

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  • Just writing something in the title is not helpful. There is at least in principle the possibility to have the customer agree (online) that the provision of the service shall start before the expiry of the revocation period, but I have no idea if the playstore supports this. For a solo developer, it appears most reasonable to me to carefully read the store's terms of service for programmers, and to go with that. Trying to weasel around it requires a legal department. – o.m. Nov 11 '20 at 18:11
  • I think the only solution is not release in EEA initially. However if an EEA user downloads an app then also the user can ask for a refund?Can they do the same for windows? – appdev Nov 11 '20 at 18:20
  • "Is blocking EU users sufficient?" Sufficient for what? Can you please distill this to a specific question? You've asked several questions here. – Ryan M Nov 13 '20 at 7:20
  • Sufficient to avoid EU laws!I dont't understand how to comply with this law and GDPR!!!! – appdev Nov 13 '20 at 8:06
  • Frankly a new question arises wether they dob the AA same for Minecraft , wikipedia donations , unity perpetual license and other one time purchases Some person from Europe tell me do you get refunds forr every onlinre purchase you make? – appdev Nov 13 '20 at 8:12
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If "play store" means the Google play store, take a look at Google's developer distribution agreement. It is a contract between the developer and google, and it answers many of your questions.

Here is the UK version. Check section 3.8. If you want to circumvent the agreement, you need more legal advice than some random guys on the web.

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In the EU, the rules for selling apps to consumers fall under the "distance selling" rules. That means that consumers have a legal right to get a refund, as you already discovered.

As is usual for EU consumer protection, it's not possible to wish this protection away. No amount of words from your side is going to alter the law. "nonrefundable" does nothing.

However, you're not obliged to sell to customers. As far as the EU is concerned, you can blacklist customers from buying again from you. That doesn't mean that Google will facilitate that, though. Things get interesting if the same user tries a second refund for the exact same product - I don't know if there's case law on that yet.

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  • Think we can geoblocking EU.That is the final solution.Do they do the same with all paid steam games!EU laws are a bit comlex for me.Diffivulty in understanding – appdev Nov 12 '20 at 12:51
  • @appdev: The tricky part is that multiplayer games and similar software includes a service component. That changes the matter even further. For services, consumers can waive the refund period, and you don't need to provide the service while consumers are still in the refund period. Note that this is not automatic - users will have to take an explicit action to waive that period. You can't check that box by default. – MSalters Nov 12 '20 at 14:56
  • Isn't this bad for small developers. – appdev Nov 12 '20 at 16:33
  • Well, that's just the EU policy of siding with consumers. 450 million potential customers; your choice whether you want to play by the rules required to sell to them. – MSalters Nov 12 '20 at 16:43
  • On closer reading of the Finnish explanation, it seems that you can treat all downloaded apps as if they're services. So you can use the "waive the refund period to start using it now", which is an option I see all the time in Steam. – MSalters Nov 12 '20 at 16:51

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