For some reason Vodafone dislikes Google Play Store carrier billing. Yup, the carrier shut down the capability in Italy, Spain, Germany and the UK. This, however, doesn’t mean you won’t be able to buy apps and games anymore; it’s just that you’ll have to rely on your good ol’ debit/credit card to make that happen rather than using your monthly phone bill.
As AndroidPolice has spotted, the Big Red carrier has disappeared from the list of carrier billing partners on Google’s Play Store support page, and no further information was given.
Now we’re not sure why would Vodafone want to take this route and are hoping to get some answers in the days to come. After all, it seems perfectly convenient to buy some app or game (or whatever) now and pay for it at the end of the month. Could that produce some legal implications or what? I could imagine a scenario in which a child buys something without his/her parents consent but I would assume Google has implemented the mechanisms that prevent something like this. We’ll see where this goes…