Android in-app purchases: do you need to check for the com.android.vending.BILLING permission when targeting Android 6?

Question

When implementing in-app billing, or IAB, the docs say you have to add this to your manifest:

<uses-permission android:name="com.android.vending.BILLING" />

As of Android 6, apps are expected to check at runtime if users have granted permissions that don't belong to the 'normal' permissions category. Note that, as at API level 23, com.android.vending.BILLING isn't listed anywhere under this category. So...

1. If it isn't normal, does that mean it's dangerous?
2. Do I need to check for permission before using IAB?
3. If I do, how? I can't find any examples of IAB integrated with the new Android 6 permissions model. There doesn't appear to be any permission related to billing under Manifest.permission for example.

Answer 1

You can't find com.android.vending.BILLING permission in the list of normal or dangerous permissions of Android 6.0 because it isn't a system permission.

It is declared by the package com.android.vending (a.k.a. Google Play Store). You can find it in his AndroidManifest.xml:

<permission
    android:name="com.android.vending.BILLING"
    android:description="@string/perm_billing_desc"
    android:label="@string/perm_billing_label"
    android:permissionGroup="android.permission-group.NETWORK"
    android:protectionLevel="normal"/>

You don't need to check the permission at runtime because it is necessary only to the system permissions.

You can find more information about application declared permission here: http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/manifest/permission-element.html