A war chest set up by a former Monifieth man to fund a court battle against internet giant Google has failed to raise a single penny.
Paul Cuthbertson, 27, who now lives in Belfast, developed the Absolutely Monifieth app and launched it in August as a new source of information about the community.
However, Android device users in Monifieth are no longer able to access it via Google’s Play app store after the tech giant terminated Mr Cuthbertson’s account.
The entrepreneur said he was slapped with a ban after a decision to remove a sentence from five of his apps on Google Play saw him sanctioned for “deceptive behaviour”.
Mr Cuthbertson created a go fund me page to raise £20,000 for legal fees to take Google to the High Court and reached out to the Monifieth community.
But there have been no donations, despite a public plea on social media, and he is now reluctantly looking at other ways of raising the money.
He said: “I can only hope that Google will eventually reinstate my developer account which will help the app grow.
“Losing access to publish on Google Play is the most frustrating thing I’ve encountered.
“It makes me sick most days as I was making a very good living from my apps on Google Play.”
He said he was relying on his partner, David Thompson, to pick up extra shifts at work since his monthly earnings had plummeted by more than 57%.
“I have managed to publish the app on Amazon, however that is not near as popular as Google Play,” he said.
“The community are missing out as there is so much information within the app for the community.
“I encourage the people of Monifieth to not give up on the app and show support by donating via the go fund me page.”
Mr Cuthbertson, who went to Seaview Primary, Monifieth High School and Dundee College, decided to take legal action after months of trying to resolve the account dispute.
In addition to Absolutely Monifieth, he has developed another 10 apps all of which were previously available on the Google Play download platform.
A spokeswoman for Google Play said it would not be reinstating Mr Cuthbertson’s developer account.
Anyone who would like to support him can still do so at https://www.gofundme.com/paul-cuthbertson
