  Voice applications (voice apps) are a key element in Voice Assistant
ecosystems such as Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, as they provide
assistants with a wide range of capabilities that users can invoke with a voice
command. Most voice apps, however, are developed by third parties - i.e., not
by Amazon/Google - and they are included in the ecosystem through marketplaces
akin to smartphone app stores but with crucial differences, e.g., the voice app
code is not hosted by the marketplace and is not run on the local device.
Previous research has studied the security and privacy issues of voice apps in
the wild, finding evidence of bad practices by voice app developers. However,
developers' perspectives are yet to be explored.
  In this paper, we report a qualitative study of the experiences of voice app
developers and the challenges they face. Our findings suggest that: 1)
developers face several risks due to liability pushed on to them by the more
powerful voice assistant platforms, which are linked to negative privacy and
security outcomes on voice assistant platforms; and 2) there are key issues
around monetization, privacy, design, and testing rooted in problems with the
voice app certification process. We discuss the implications of our results for
voice app developers, platforms, regulators, and research on voice app
development and certification.
