Mopub will Suspend child targeted app

Hi,

I 've just received and email from Mopub:

Dear Publisher,

You previously informed MoPub that one or more of your applications or sites is targeted at children under 13 years of age, as defined under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. You indicated this when adding your application or site to the MoPub Marketplace or Ad Serving program. You answered “Yes” to the “COPPA” question “Is your app targeted at 13 year olds or younger?”

With our recent updates to the MoPub Terms of Service, Privacy Policy and Program Policies, MoPub is discontinuing support of self-identified children’s apps and sites registered through the MoPub website. Our updated Terms of Service require that publishers represent and warrant that:

(i) No site or application within your Customer Network is a website or online service directed to children, as defined under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”), and (ii) You will not transmit any “Personal Information” (as defined under COPPA) about or relating to an individual under the age of 13 to MoPub.

See section 4(h) of the updated Terms of Service, under the heading “Child-Directed Sites or Apps,” at http://xxxxx

We are hereby giving you notice that MoPub will be suspending your self-identified children’s apps and sites as of the close of business on Friday May 16, 2014.

If you mistakenly answered “Yes” to the “COPPA” question for your app or site, use this form to let us know by no later than close of business on Wednesday April 30, 2014. However, please keep in mind that we reserve the right to suspend your use of MoPub in our discretion.

MOPUB, INC. POLICY TEAM
1355 Market Street, Suite 900
San Francisco, CA 94103

I can not go to my site/app to edit it know. What can i do know for continue use them, because all of my app is game, and i can unchecked child target.
They email me 1 email yesterday about policy change but i don’t read it carefully.
And i don’t remember correctly what app i check on Yes "You answered “Yes” to the “COPPA” question “Is your app targeted at 13 year olds or younger?” ".

I rate all my apps high maturity, even on my kids apps, 99% of parents will not change their device settings and maturity apps will still be shown, I still get lots of downloads on my kids apps even with high maturity rating on google play, this keeps me safe, and less likely to have banned apps.

All game i use Mopub on Apple App store for IOS, they have manual approve process and it can take 1 month, and rating base on content like Amazon. If Mopub suspend my games, my income from them will lost(not much about 100$)
But all my downloads stop ads, because i use them for mediation.

I’ve also got this email from mopub. They are silly. No way to check which apps are COPPA checked. If you don’t want your app to be available to children <13 you need to have your privacy policy or TOS. This Twitter aquisition mess up everything.
Need to find new mediation platform.
Do guys know any good mediation platform? Admob and mopub excluded.

Hi,
Does this mean,
All and network will follow this sooner or letter?
or it is just MoPub,

I remember , iAd never allow to serve on kids apps.
I also remember that Amazon has started asking the same that is is your app for kids in that case amazon will not serve ads.

Experts, please comment

is it an informative email or am i directly confronted to it if i received it?
Cause i’m 100% sure that i’ve never check the box to target children …

I don’t see anywhere on Mopub dashboard where I could possibly change the restrictions to restrict my apps to people older than 13 years old. Do I have to use the form they sent by email and indicate all my apps or there is another way?

Thanks

Yes, i read their form and gave up. They force me provide link to app and policy that does not let child under 13 year old use my app, but on App Store all my app is rate 4+ by Apple.
So i am starting remove all Mopub from my app and submit update (take months) :slight_smile:

They just ask you once time if i remember correctly and now they don’t let you change it from dashboard. If you only use for Android, that simple, just remove their SDK and you Admob for example, but all money from market seem gone… Read my answer up if you want to submit the form.

If an app is suppended, is there anything help us know about that on the dashboard? I don’t remember if I have checked the coopa or not but I received the same email. Up to now all my app still work normally.

I think 99% of games are suitable for children under 13, does moPun want us to remove all games from their mediation? I didn’t receive an e-mail yet, but I think you are right - it might be time to look for new mediation platform. I will probably use my own server for that, I already mediate Amazon ads using AppBrain parameters, not much has to be changed to move it to separate server.

Here is part of Program Policy :
“Please note that COPPA’s restrictions still allow the use of persistent identifiers for frequency capping, conversion tracking, and contextual ads, and we will continue to support these services on all apps, including those used by children under 13. However, these services are only available to premium publishers who agree to commercial terms. Please contact us at [email protected] for more information. Please see the additional FTC guidance and FAQs here regarding COPPA. We urge you to consult your legal counsel on how to comply with COPPA.”

It’s look like they want to earn money on kids game makers. I wrote them email with question : How I can become premium publisher.
I also didn’t receive an email about suspension.

They don’t let we see the status, my app still work too but i guess it soon be ban and lost current money…

They care about ads display in the game/app not the game game content. They want to get higher income from ads for adult :D. Customs ads from server code very simple, but it’s cost you money and the small server can not serve much user (If the are hundred thousand request).

Custom server would only be asked once per day per user so I think even very simple one would suffice. I would only ask for eCPM and cache them for a day or even week. And in case the server is down I can always use defaults.

What custom server do you use?

None, yet. But I am ready to move in case of trouble. For emergency I have a server for my sites that should suffice at first. I think downloading a simple text file with eCPMs of all networks would be enough for my apps.

I was searching for an alternative for MoPub and I found this : AdFlake - Home I never heard of them before. Some of you did?

If you want to go the self-hosted route, there is very few options (which I didn’t try myself) :

mAdserve : The code is Open Source but no more supported (the product became Mobfox) : mAdserve - Open Source Mobile Ad Server
Revive : is activilely developed and also Open source : Free Open Source Ad Server - Revive Adserver
Orbit Open Ad server : Orbit Open Ad Server

Why do you need something complex for self-hosted route? Just implement all ad networks in your code, load text file from your server with list of priorities (which networks should be used first, which second), refresh ads manually every 60 seconds and on that refresh decide which network to use. If ad is not found on the chosen network switch to next network on your list. Should be easy to implement in an hour or two. You don’t load ads from your server - only the list of networks sorted by eCPM (you can edit the file manually through ftp when you want to change the priorities). Of course the more networks you use, the more work - because you have to implement them all in your apps.

We are getting a bit offtopic though, sorry about that. I am just thinking out loud I suppose, just in case.

Hi there, just wanted to provide you with some answers on AdFlake. My name is Manny and I am one of the devs behind AdFlake. We’re a German company called MADE and we’re developing AdFlake not only as a service for others, but also as a service for us. Unlike Google or others, we’re no ad company, we’re developers and we thrive on creating cool apps and games.

First up, we are not going to ban you because we don’t like your app :slight_smile: Another important question that we get quite often is, is the service stable? Yes, it is. AdFlake is hosted on the Microsoft Azure cloud and we’re prepared for traffic, we’re running lots of fail-over servers and data is automatically backed up and stored in multiple data centers across the world.
AdFlake is also awesome because it provides you with neat features like real time analytics, or a feature we use to it’s full extent: cross promotion with house ads. We also got lots of great features and more platform support on our road map.