Android Market Tracking Now Available for Members Outside The U.S.

As you know we started tracking apps from the Android Market (now Google Play) about 3 months ago. Shortly after, we began finding out that some of our members from outside the U.S. were having trouble syncing their market accounts with appFigures.

It turns out that when our servers, which are located in the U.S., attempt to extract data from Google accounts originating from outside the U.S., Google tends to ask for extra verification to prevent unauthorized access. The problem is that we don’t know exactly what sort of extra information will be required ahead of time, and we don’t want to ask you for any more information about your account than the bare minimum required (the account credentials).

This turned out to be a pretty challenging issue to solve. Sure, we could find some hacky work around, but we wanted to do it right. We put a lot of time into creating a secure and reliable solution. Here’s how it works:

Next time you add a Google account to appFigures and our servers recognize that Google is asking for further verification, a verification window will pop up. There you’ll be able to complete the verification step with Google directly, after which we’ll attempt to import your data.

If you add a Google account and no further verification is required, you’ll never see that popup and everything will work as usual. Easy.

So if you’re outside the U.S. and have been having issues connecting your Google account with your appFigures account, now is a good time to try again.

Although we’ve been testing the new verification system rigorously, there are certainly a few more rough edges left to smooth out. So for now we slapped a ‘beta’ label on it. Please contact us if you experience any issues or have questions.