Is LINE: Calls & Messages censored by Google?

Why it is unavailable

Five things can put an app out of one Google Play. Each is weighed below against what can be seen from outside — open a card for the reasoning.

• A government or a court demanded itPossible

  and Google complied. Google publishes a count of these per country each year and never says which apps they were. Google’s Transparency Report

• A local rule about paying for itPossible

  gambling licences, financial rules, tax — the kind of law that governs a transaction. Google can obey every one of them by refusing the payment, which is why this is the only restriction we would accept and the only one that cannot touch a free app.

• Google applied a rule, unaskedPossible

  either its own review guidelines, or its own reading of a local law, with nobody having demanded anything. This is the largest category in Google’s own removal figures by a wide margin, and it covers distribution permits as well as content — Google kept a free Bible app out of mainland China in 2021 for want of one. Google’s Transparency Report

• The developer withheld itPossible

  freely, or under legal advice of their own, or because Google’s guidelines require that kind of app to be limited to certain countries. Switching a country off is easy for a developer to do in Google’s own tools: it needs no new version of the app, and it leaves no public trace other than the app being unavailable.

• Something brokeUnlikely

  a rejected update, a lapsed certificate, a payment or licensing problem, a mistake nobody has got round to noticing.

  • Gone for 2 years.

Know of a statement, notice or order we have missed? Tell us →