Early this week I saw link to a couple of new music making apps for Android and wanted to check them out, so I clicked and … BLOCKED! That is right – suddenly I couldn’t access Google Play.
I went ahead and asked one of our local IT folks and he said that in general their filters will block download sites, game and music digital download sites and so on, but similar to Amazon’s MP3 and video sites the Google site managed to make it through the filters due to the way the site evolved.
But once the name changed to ‘play’, THAT set off filter alerts … and combined with the gaming and download content meant it was automatically blocked. And, based on what he knew, it wouldn’t be unblocked any time soon – unless a clear business case can be made.
So not only has Google come up with THE WORST possible name change for the Android Market, they have also managed to get themselves caught in the corporate filters at my not-small work site – and a couple of others based on some discussions I have seen.