Cardboard may have started as a side project for a pair of its employees, but it appears Google has become serious about protecting the name associated with its open source cardboard virtual reality headset.
Earlier in the week, several developers took to Google+ to complain Google has removed their work from the Play Store for using the word “Cardboard” as a prominent feature in the name of their app.
One of the first developers to do so, Henrik Chai, developer of Cardboard VNC, gave additional context to the situation. He claims his app was removed for violating the Google Play Store’s content policy. Specifically, Chai states Cardboard VNC was removed for using another brand at the start of its name, and that the app supposedly violated Google’s spam policy.
Another developer called Couch Games Software also took to the social media platform to state their app was likewise removed from the app marketplace. The developer says their app is back on the store now, but only after they agreed to rename it to VR Theatre for Cardboard.
Based on the limited information provided by those posts, it looks like Google may have felt there was an opportunity for users to get the impression those apps were created by its own in-house team of developers. However, we’ve contacted Google to find out more. We’ll update this post when and if we hear back from the company.
Google Cardboard was released at the company’s Google I/O developer conference in 2014. Creators David Coz and Damien Henry envisioned the platform as a low-cost way for people to access the burgeoning world of virtual reality.
[source]Google+ 1 (1), (2) [/source][via]Variety[/via]
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