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I'm considering moving my apps to another Google (Apps) Account as described here:

http://www.google.com/support/androidmarket/developer/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=139626

However, I need to be sure there are no "gotchas" regarding LVL or in-app billing.

In particular, LVL signs responses with your public key (as given in the Edit Profile of your Developer account). So what happens when you move an app from one account to another?

If LVL uses the new public key then the existing app installations will all fail their LVL checks.

Has anyone got experience of moving an LVL (or in-app billing) app to a different Google account?

Mark
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1 Answers1

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Yes, there is a big caveat here.

Our support staff don't have the ability to transfer keypairs from one Market account to another.

What this means:

  • Licensing service: We record the keypair used for each version of your app at the time the version is published. New versions will need to include your new public key. Old versions will be unaffected.
  • In-app billing: The moment your application is transfered over, the billing service will begin signing all billing responses using your new keypair. Old versions of your app will immediately fail to authenticate billing responses. To prepare for this, you'll need to push out a version of your app in advance that attempts to authenticate requests using both your old and new keypair.
Trevor Johns
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  • Thanks Trevor. A couple of months ago, I updated my app to include both public keys. Whenever I do an LVL or in-app check, I first use the old public key and if that fails I try the new public key. I assume from your answer, that this should be sufficient for all users who have updated to that version (or later)? Users who have not updated to that version will get proper LVL checks but failed in-app checks, right? – Mark Jan 03 '12 at 10:02
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    Yup, that's correct. LVL should work fine on older versions without any changes. For IAB though, you'll want to push out an update in advance of your change that checks both keys (or write some mechanism that tells users to update if you detect they have an outdated version before starting a billing transaction). – Trevor Johns Jan 08 '12 at 19:56
  • @TrevorJohns It's great to know that LVL will work with old app versions after you transfer apps to another account. Sorry for offtopic, but our problem is similar: do you happen to know will all ratings and comments as well as position in Google Play list (on the site and on devices) be REALLY preserved after such transfer? I mean did positive experience with real accounts take place? We plan to move to new account (to change country/payment), but we don't want to lose our position. We don't care about fee refund, but can Google guarantee that transfer will work as it is stated? – Tertium Oct 10 '12 at 23:06
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    @Tertium: As the support article says, "all ratings, comments, metrics, and users are preserved". We wouldn't have written it down if we didn't mean it. Our support team transfers apps between accounts regularly. That said, metrics refers to your app's stats counters; we don't make any guarantees about search _position_. For example, the search system may take into account the other applications associated with a developer account (or it might not — we don't publish the algorithm our search uses). – Trevor Johns Oct 13 '12 at 06:05