Google has suspended in Russia all payment systems within the Play Store, its application store, confirms the medium Reuters. Likewise, content creators who use YouTube to broadcast their videos will find themselves involved in another problem, since they will no longer receive income from their local audience. Previously, those from Mountain View had already paused ad monetization system with which they earn money.
These new suspensions come as a result of the sanctions that the West has imposed to Russian banks. This, in turn, is due to the invasion that the Slavic country is currently carrying out on Ukrainian territory. Through a statement, Google has confirmed that the payment system “will be suspended in the next few days“; and covers all kinds of activities within your store.
That yes, the users of the region will be able to do with the rest of the free applications of the store; so it is not a total suspension. However, all those services that require payments through the Play Store or any other Google service will be canceled until further notice.
Due to the interruption of the payment system, we will pause the Google Play billing system for users in Russia in the coming days. This means that users will not be able to purchase apps and games; make subscription payments or make in-app purchases of digital goods through Google Play in Russia. Free apps will still be available on the Play Store.
In a similar vein, YouTube is facing a similar fate. A platform spokesperson has confirmed the suspension of payment systems. Therefore, services such as YouTube Premium, channel memberships, Super Chat and marketing will no longer be available to Russian users. Also, from TechCrunch report that the suspensions in the payments of this service took effect on March 10 at 00:00 Moscow time.
All is not lost for Russian content creators on YouTube
According to a YouTube spokesperson, Russian content creators can continue to earn income with your videos. How? They comment that “with ads and other monetization products that are shown to users in countries outside of Russia.” In this way, it is clear that the suspension only affects Russian users and consumers; a demography that will not be able to continue contributing to the economy of its youtubers local favorites.
“We have recently paused all Google and YouTube ads in Russia. As a follow-up, we are now extending this pause to all of our monetization features, including YouTube Premium, Channel Memberships, Super Chat, and Merchandise, for viewers in Russia. “
Youtube
This move is quite positive, given that content creators located in Russia they have no party in the war movements of the government of that country. In this way, although they will not be able to obtain payments from their Russian consumers, they will still have the doors open to the rest of the world to continue obtaining their profits. Unfortunately, not everyone will have an international audienceand they will be the ones who are most affected by this.
During the last few weeks, other tech giants have joined the sanctions against acts of Russian interference in Ukraine. Companies like Apple, Airbnb, Microsoft and many more have decided to stop all their sales of products and services in the region; thus joining the international protests against the invasion.
Likewise, other platforms have been tightening their measures against Russian media disinformation. own European Union has vetoed certain media like RT or Sputnik, and it has been joined by Reddit, Twitter, Spotify and many others.