Google’s legal team has sent out a warning email to all registered developers regarding a subpoena issued by FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation). The FBI subpoenaed Google asking for information about the company’s Android application and developer’s contact information.
The reason for asking such details may be to investigate regarding applications that are available in markets without developers consent.
Suppose you are an Android developer, you may have received a warning email from Google that went something like this:
Hello,
Google has received a subpoena seeking information related to Android applications that may have been made available on alternative markets without the consent of the developer. The subpoena seeks information about those Android applications, including contact information for the developers of the applications. Our records show that your Android developer account will be included in the information Google will provide in response to this subpoena.
Google is not in a position to provide you with legal advice or discuss the substance of the process in our possession. For more information about the subpoena, you may wish to contact the Federal Bureau of Investigation — Atlanta Field Office at (404) 679-9000, reference #2011R00320/FBI/ORKIN.
Regards,
Google Legal Investigations Support
The Atlanta FBI later confirmed that the messages were legit. The representative from the FBI went on to say that Google should not have sent the message to its developers and forced the developers to ignore the message and offered restoring of their confidence that the FBI would contact any developers considered as victims.
Phandroid went on to speculate that the letters may be related to the Aliyun mobile OS offering its users a large number of pirated Google Play apps.