No one would have an issue with them making this demand of Play Playstore Devs. This demand is being made to every dev of EVERY APP. That includes stores that google has absolutely no control. That means that I no longer have the right to take my own risks and to trust who I want to trust.
They should absolutely make this a requirement to join their store. Id support that. They have no right taking away or limiting my ability to install applications on a device I own
What does that look like? Who do you feel needs to do what for that to happen?
If you haven't seen this yet, Google is planning to require mandatory developer identity verification for all Android apps, including apps distributed outside the Play Store, taking effect September 2026. This affects every independent and open source Android developer directly.
This is not just about the Play Store. After September 2026, on any certified Android device, applications from unverified developers will be blocked by default. The only proposed bypass, the "advanced flow", exists only as a blog post and has not appeared in any beta, dev preview, or canary release. No one outside Google has seen it.
The community has been fighting back at keepandroidopen.org:
September 2026 is closer than it looks. The time to push back is now.
No I rightly don't care wrote it if I can see the source code and verify where all my data is.
If you want to know where where your apps come from then Id suggest you stop downloading from the playstore and start downloading from the sources. Get connected with the community. Learn something. It'll be good for you