Google may be gearing up to offer a separate digital subscription section for news outlets in its Play Store: A bit of JavaScript uncovered on the desktop web version of the Play Store by the blog Android Police includes several lines of text that mention "Google Play News" and ask users to "sign in to purchase this News Edition Subscription." The Play Store CSS also reveals that the News section will be color-coded yellow, to differentiate it from the rest of the Store's multihued content offerings (Apps are green, Books are blue, Magazines are violet, and so on).

If Google does launch the service soon, it would become the clear go-to Android rival to Apple's own digital subscription section on iOS, Newsstand, in which Apple keeps 30 percent of sales — but it would also compete with other Android digital subscription stores from Amazon and Barnes & Noble. It's unclear how the pricing or any other details of Google's Play News section would work, or how if at all it would be differentiated from the Play Store's subscription Magazine section. Google declined to comment on any plans for a News section when we asked, so for now, it remains just a tantalizing idea for readers hunting for optimized content and publishers looking to make up for declining print circulations.