startapp causes ban?

Monetizing, Advertising & Marketing Advertising Networks
1

Do you have any issues with Startapp? Last time I got ban. Description looks like it was caused by Exit ads from Startapp (onPause method). I will post the e-mail in few hours. I see that in new SDK Startapp removed this type of ads. Any thoughts?

2

it will be sad if another good app network causes bans:/ I thought Startapp is really trustworthy

3

So do I… But take a look at their new SDK - exit ads are out. I’m only sad because they didn’t tell us that these ads may cause ban… They removed it silently from SDK and that’s it. No info about SDK updating for all devs

4

Ooh No. Can you post email??

5

Yeah, sure. There is info about ban: (I used only Startapp - splash, exit ads, interstitials, banners. All integrated like it is in SDK tutorial)

REASON FOR REMOVAL: Violation of the Ad Policy:

Interstitial ads may only be displayed inside of the app they came with. A prominent and accessible target must be made available to users in any interstitial ad so they may dismiss the ad without penalty or inadvertent click-through.

I’m afraid of my other apps… I have startapp in ALL my apps. Maybe Startapp rep will tell us something? We MUST update SDK?

6

I’m afraid too because my apps also have these. Please get some solution before loosing account. :frowning:

7

are you using and startAppAd.onPause(); ad? I think this is the cause of ban.

8

have you enabled home button ad?

this is against gplay policy as i mentioned earlier

9

Yes, I have used Home Button Ads… I didn’t know earlier that it may cause ban… I have to update ALL my apps…:frowning:

10

home button ad means ad injecting into different process. <- ban

I told u

11

OK, thanks!:slight_smile: I just need to be sure… So I’m updating all apps from today… A lot of work:/

12

acorrding to this link: Permissions Explained | StartApp you can see that they need access to another task (in home button case it’s the launcher) to inject the add there. It’s a workaround to override home button func. both is against gplay terms.

I think normal exit ads are ok I think … but not sure about it neither… according to this: 31. August 2014: Bisherige AdMob-Version wurde eingestellt - Google AdMob-Hilfe

Think about the flow of user engagement within your application. Place your ads where users might be expected to be less engaged with the content of the application, such as transitions in written content, during level changes of a game, or when a user might be expected to exit the application.

it should be ok, or even prefered?

13

yes, you should remove home button ads. And it is better to not exit application before user dismisses the ad (showing with back button), just to be sure

14

get it done before users report it. All my apps were banned, my account banned along with my admob being killed because of it.

15

you used the same e-mail for admob? It is better to use different e-mail address for admob, that u use for GP accounts. They rarely track and ban it in that case

16

No they always do. A few days back they emailed developers which have their apps with old admob sdk/id and they specifically quoted app names. SO, they have app names and have package id , thus a single look-up will tell them if app is on playstore or NOT. BAN!

17

There should be sth like TURN OFF onPause ads in startapp… Updating SDKin a lot of apps is sooooo loong and booring

18

Hi mmmkkksss and everyone,

Thanks for bringing this topic up here in the forum.

First, sorry to hear you had a few apps banned, hoping Google will re-instate those or at least give you a chance to fix the issue.

You are correct that we’ve uploaded a new SDK to the dev portal a couple of days ago, and we have yet to communicate this new SDK out to our developer community. The home button removal was not the main reason for this update, rather a change we’ve added on top of a major udpate from AndroidID to AdvertiserID and several other bug fixes and optimizations as well as a few new killer ad units.

We’ve removed the Exit Ad functionality (home button only, on-back-press remains) as a precautionary measure, as we were not yet sure this was the reason for a couple of reported bans from the past few days. We are still investigating the reported cases to see the cause.

As I said above, the main reason was the change of the ID mechanism. We didn’t communicate this globally, as this is a major change that we wanted to gradually scale its usage.

As always, we are doing our absolute best to bring our developer community a top notch product that is ahead of the field and always up-to-date with the latest Play Policy.

I’m always available for direct contact about these or any other issues, so is our support team. Never hesitate to bring these issues up with us.

We’ll be in touch soon with updates,
Ariel.

19

I use this without any problems (until now…)

Showing Exit Ads

Add the following code to show an ad upon exiting your application.

To show an ad when pressing the ‘Back’ button, override the onBackPressed() method and add the method startAppAd.onBackPressed() BEFORE the method super.onBackPressed():

@Override
public void onBackPressed() {
startAppAd.onBackPressed();
super.onBackPressed();
}

20

I posted some useful links yesterday but the post for whatever reason needs approvement and was not approved yet.

In that post (I am lacy and don’t want to look up the links again) I mentioned, that ad guidelines from google itself says/suggests to implement ads on places where users are less engaged to your apps i.e. (quote) “when they are about to exit”

Well it’s not exactly saying, that exit-ads are ok, but at least it looks like, google is ok with exit ads.

@ startapp I know, that your home button integration serves a harmless idea. But in the end:

  1. no app is allowed to override home button functionality - google is very picky with this
  2. your are actually/technically displaying an ad outside of the app - at least technically, the app may be no longer running at this point, is it? If it would you would have broken home button functionality (see 1)

I criticize, that you do state on your site, that you are 100% admob policy - at least you think you are - and also activate the home-button ad per default in your tutorials. I would love if you can get in contact with admob officials, tell them how you are doing it and get a real proof of google that you are 100% conform.

@everyone-else

Set the 3rd parameter in StartApp.initialize to FALSE to supress home button functionality (seems it was removed in the latest sdk alltogether). Also remove Permissions for GET_TASKS and SYSTEMALERT - they are only needed to do the home button stuff, remove them and test your app. If there is no error in your logcat and no crash, your app should be fine without messing with the home button :slight_smile: