Remove an app from the Google Play store - unknown developer account

Question

We have an app that exists in the Google Play store that was created by a developer who is no longer at our company. We own the app and want to remove it, but we don't know what Google account the developer used to publish the app to the store.

Is there any way we can find out what account the app is associated with? If we try to log in under Google accounts we think it might be, Google wants to charge us $25 per guess.

If we can't find the account, is there a way to have Google remove the app for us if we can provide sufficient evidence that it's ours?

Answer 1

If the developer is unavailable or uncooperative, and you can prove that this app includes your intellectual property, you can file a DMCA request with Google, asking them to remove it from the GP store. Read the warnings on the page carefully:

http://support.google.com/bin/request.py?&product=androidmarket&contact_type=lr_dmca

Answer 2

Pretty rough situation. I'm not going to advice you to use a corporate google account in the future, but I think the easiest way is to speak with the developer in person. Then explain to him that there are several clauses in his former contract with you, which concern the intellectual property obligations, signed by him. If you don't have any, or if he was hired on a freelancer contract, with no mentioning of the above, then you'll have the real deal in the court when he sues you for "his" intellectual property (being th application), uploaded by him on the Play Store. Of course, this is the worse case scenario, but you should consider it. If you have nothing left, you can contact Google, as Android-Developer above me suggested, but you risk a denial.

It is a really complicated case and I would like to see the result of it, when you settle the things out.

Answer 3

You can't pull down the application from Google Play if you don't have the access to the account which is used to upload that application. If you are lucky and the developer who uploaded the app typed his mail as contact developer mail in application in Google Play, maybe in this way trying to send a mail you can find the account which is used to upload the app, but you can't trust that, because most of the developers and companies have different mails for communicating with the customers and it depends on that.

But if you contact to Google and explain them everything and as I told above if you are lucky you can convince them to delete the app from Google Play. Or the best situation in my opinion is to contact the developer who upload the application and ask him to remove it.

Good luck!