Google Play Billing Library 6.0 introduces the INTERNET permission. Can it be avoided?

Question

The Google Play Billing Library did not previously require the android.permission.INTERNET permission. In version 6.0, I can see from my merged manifest that now it does.

Its source is the manifest file from something called transport-backend-cct:3.1.8. Googling that tells me it is part of Firebase, which I am not using. Maybe the Billing Library uses Firebase under the hood now.

The reason I'd like to avoid this is that one of my apps uses the microphone. I am afraid my customers will be alarmed if I'm "sneakily" adding an Internet permission in an update after they approved the microphone permission.

Maybe this is a long shot, but is it possible to avoid using this permission and still use Google Play Billing?

Hospitable

If you're using firebase, you're using the internet. It's a cloud db. You need to have all the permissions in your manifest that any of your libraries require. Google play billing also requires the internet. – Satem

I’m not directly using Firebase. Was it added as a dependency of the Billing Library? And Google Play Billing at least didn’t used to require an Internet permission. If it does now, that’s new to version 6. It didn’t need the internet permission I assume because the Google Play app could fetch data on your app’s behalf. I have six apps on the store using Billing Library 5 and no Internet permission, working fine for the past few years. I only caught the change because the Console warned me I was adding a permission in my app’s new version. – Hospitable

I confirmed the INTERNET permission was introduced between Billing library 5 and 6. Revising the question. – Hospitable

Did you find a solution for this? I didn't find anything else online mentioning this change. I found out about it when a user complained about the new indirectly requested permission after I updated from billing v4 to v6. This has the potential to scare users away. – Pollaiuolo

I haven’t and have just taken the risk of having the new permission. – Hospitable

When the user wants to buy something, the operation takes place online. But if during installation you inform the user through run time permissions then they have the option to choose whether or not they want to enable microphone or internet permissions. – Dorkas

I have reported this on the Android Issue tracker issuetracker.google.com/issues/353332591 Please upvote – Schock

Answer 1

I got this issue too after upgrading from billing v4 to v6.

You have the option of explicitly removing the internet permission using:

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" tools:node="remove"/>.

This does not seem to affect the billing functionality at least using a testing account. I did not try this in production yet.

Pollaiuolo

Any updates on this, does it work fine or causes any known issues? – Rok

@NishantSingh I see no issues with this in production. – Pollaiuolo

I confirm too, no issues in production for one time consumable purchases. Haven't tried other types. – Schock