gdpr european-union
EU refunds law for Play Store
<p>According to <a href="https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/guarantees-returns/index_en.htm" rel="nofollow noreferrer">EU</a> 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 &quot;The App (nonrefundable irrefundable)&quot;? 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.</p>
<p>Can EU users buy everything, ask for refunds, then repeat again and again?</p>
<p>Is blocking EU users sufficient? Do such laws apply in other countries?</p>
<p>Assume the app works as described.</p>

<p>In the EU, the rules for selling apps <em>to consumers</em> fall under the &quot;distance selling&quot; rules. That means that consumers have a legal right to get a refund, as you already discovered.</p>
<p>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. &quot;nonrefundable&quot; does nothing.</p>
<p>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.</p>

<p>If &quot;play store&quot; 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.</p>
<p>Here is the <a href="https://play.google.com/intl/ALL_uk/about/developer-distribution-agreement.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">UK version</a>. Check section 3.8. If you want to circumvent the agreement, you need more legal advice than some random guys on the web.</p>
