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Apple Agrees to Unconditionally Refund Taiwanese consumers on Flawed Apps

2011/07/15 | By Ken Liu

Taipei, July 15, 2011 (CENS)--Apple has agreed to Taipei City Government's request that Apple is obligated to unconditionally refund Taiwan consumers on flawed iPad or iPhone apps within seven days of their purchase, while Google has yet to respond to a similar request.

Apple announced yesterday that the unconditional refund policy is applicable only to consumers who purchase apps via the Apple Store online in Taiwan.

The city government asked Apple last month to change its policy after having received widespread complaints from consumers having difficulty getting refunds on flawed apps.

The city government made the request based on the clear explanation by the Executive Yuan's Consumer Protection Commission that all digital merchandises that are sold online are subject to the seven-day trial period as are other physical products sold online. Application software is included in the “digital merchandise” category, the city government said.

On another front, Google has insisted that a 15-miniute trial time is sufficient enough for application consumers and hasn't responded to the city government's similar request, it is likely to receive another fine of NT$1 million (US$34,480 at US$1:NT$29) today.

Google develops OS Android that has been built in a huge number of smartphones and opened online stores to sell other applications.