[amacalac]

the ban is more on Apple and Google - preventing them making the app available.

My guess is that it’ll be based on the billing address of the account tied to the device.

If the billing address resides in Montana, the app won’t be shown for download.

Aside from that, yes, I agree. Tough to do, and mostly theatre.

[ninefathom]

Running with the billing address example... so to circumvent the ban, all one would need is a prepaid phone plan. Service addresses are collected for those, but they're basically unused and there's no incentive on the consumer end for them to be accurate.

Even on post-billed plans, getting the billing address from the mobile carrier to Google requires a degrees of cooperation that is not currently in place. Apple may have an easier time in the regard, but then again they're not likely to cooperate either.