Google Play makes bizarre decision to ban call-recording apps

Article note: Well that's shitty. The only thing being hostile toward individual self recording accomplishes is exacerbating the power asymmetry in favor of large entities.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Aurich Lawson)

Google has announced a bizarre policy that effectively bans call-recording apps from the Play Store. As part of Google's crackdown on apps that use Android's accessibility APIs for non-accessibility reasons, Google says call recording is no longer allowed via the accessibility APIs. Since the accessibility APIs are the only way for third-party apps to record calls on Android, call-recording apps are dead on Google Play.

NLL Apps—the developer of a call-recording phone app with a million downloads on the Play Store—has been tracking the policy change. The Google Play support page lays down the new law, saying: "The Accessibility API is not designed and cannot be requested for remote call audio recording." Google's ban kicks in on May 11, the first day of Google I/O, oddly.

There's no clear reason why Google is banning call recording from the Play Store. Many jurisdictions require the consent of one or more members of a call in order to start recording, but once you meet that requirement, recording is entirely legal and useful. The Google Recorder app is a product built entirely around the usefulness of recording conversations. Google doesn't seem to have a problem with call recording when it comes to its own apps, either—the Google Phone app on Pixel phones supports call recording in some countries. Google just doesn't provide the proper APIs to let third-party app developers compete with it in this market, and now it's shutting down their attempted workarounds.