Google is shutting down paid Chrome extensions offered on the Google Chrome Web Store, the company announced in a blog post on Tuesday. This means that developers who currently monetise their Chrome extensions via the Chrome Web Store payments will not be able to do so. Google said that developers will need to migrate to other payment-handling systems. The Mountain View-based giant said it started the Chrome Web Store 11 years back. Back then, it said it wanted to provide a way for developers to monetise their items. However, now it said there are plenty of other options available for developers to handle their payments apart from Google’s own.
Google, in its blog post said that it started temporarily disabling new paid extension in March because of resource constraints due to COVID-19. It said that it has decided to make that change permanent, and over the months it will phase out payments for existing items. Before March, however, Google had also suspended paid extensions in January this year after noticing a rise in fraudulent transactions that aimed to exploit users.
As per the change, developers will no longer be able to create new paid extensions or in-app items. From December 1, free trials will also be disabled. Google also shared a graph of how it plans to phase out the plan over the next few months, which says that existing extensions can no longer charge users via Chrome Web Store’s payments system from February 1.
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