Hello Google Policies

Hi Everyone,

I’m new to this forum and hope to bring some of my experience and knowledge from the Android world.

My first thread will be about analyzing the new policies in depth and who is following and not following these policies.

I hope every developer here will give their knowledge as well.

Let’s get started!

Google Play Developer Program Policies

The policies listed below play an important role in maintaining a positive experience for everyone using Google Play. Defined terms used here have the same meaning as in the Developer Distribution Agreement. Be sure to check back from time to time, as these policies may change.

Content Policies

Our content policies apply to any content your application displays or links to, including any ads it shows to users and any user-generated content it hosts or links to. Further, they apply to any content from your developer account which is publicly displayed in Google Play, including your developer name and the landing page of your listed developer website. In addition to complying with these policies, the content of your app must be rated in accordance with our Content Rating Guidelines.
• Sexually Explicit Material: We don’t allow content that contains nudity, graphic sex acts, or sexually explicit material. Google has a zero-tolerance policy against child sexual abuse imagery. If we become aware of content with child sexual abuse imagery, we will report it to the appropriate authorities and delete the Google Accounts of those involved with the distribution.
• Violence and Bullying: Depictions of gratuitous violence are not allowed. Applications should not contain materials that threaten, harass or bully other users.
• Hate Speech: We don’t allow content advocating against groups of people based on their race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status, or sexual orientation/gender identity.
• Impersonation or Deceptive Behavior: Don’t pretend to be someone else, and don’t represent that your app is authorized by or produced by another company or organization if that is not the case. Products or the ads they contain also must not mimic functionality or warnings from the operating system or other applications. Products must not contain false or misleading information in any content, title, icon, description, or screenshots. Developers must not divert users or provide links to any other site that mimics or passes itself off as another application or service. Apps must not have names or icons that appear confusingly similar to existing products, or to apps supplied with the device (such as Camera, Gallery or Messaging).
• Personal and Confidential Information: We don’t allow unauthorized publishing or disclosure of people’s private and confidential information, such as credit card numbers, government identification numbers, driver’s and other license numbers, non-public contacts, or any other information that is not publicly accessible.
• Intellectual Property: Don’t infringe on the intellectual property rights of others, (including patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright, and other proprietary rights), or encourage or induce infringement of intellectual property rights. We will respond to clear notices of alleged copyright infringement. For more information or to file a DMCA request, please visit our copyright procedures.
• Illegal Activities: Keep it legal. Don’t engage in unlawful activities on this product, such as the sale of prescriptions drugs without a prescription.
• Gambling: We don’t allow content or services that facilitate online gambling, including but not limited to, online casinos, sports betting and lotteries, or games of skill that offer prizes of cash or other value.
• Dangerous Products: We don’t allow content that harms, interferes with the operation of, or accesses in an unauthorized manner, networks, servers, or other infrastructure.
o Don’t transmit viruses, worms, defects, Trojan horses, malware, or any other items that may introduce security vulnerabilities to or harm user devices, applications, or personal data.
o Apps that collect information (such as the user’s location or behavior) without the user’s knowledge (spyware) are prohibited.
o Malicious scripts and password phishing scams are also prohibited on Google Play, as are applications that cause users to unknowingly download or install applications from sources outside of Google Play.
o An app downloaded from Google Play may not modify, replace or update its own APK binary code using any method other than Google Play’s update mechanism.
• System Interference:
o An app downloaded from Google Play (or its components or derivative elements) must not make changes to the user’s device outside of the app without the user’s knowledge and consent.
o This includes behavior such as replacing or reordering the default presentation of apps, widgets, or the settings on the device. If an app makes such changes with the user’s knowledge and consent, it must be clear to the user which app has made the change and the user must be able to reverse the change easily, or by uninstalling the app altogether.
o Apps and their ads must not add homescreen shortcuts, browser bookmarks, or icons on the user’s device as a service to third parties or for advertising purposes.
o Apps and their ads must not display advertisements through system level notifications on the user’s device, unless the notifications derive from an integral feature provided by the installed app. (e.g., an airline app that notifies users of special deals, or a game that notifies users of in-game promotions).
o Apps must not encourage, incentivize, or mislead users into removing or disabling third-party apps except as part of a security service provided by the app.

Network Usage and Terms
Applications must not create unpredictable network usage that has an adverse impact on a user’s service charges or an Authorized Carrier’s network. Applications also may not knowingly violate an Authorized Carrier’s terms of service for allowed usage or any Google terms of service.

Spam and Placement in the Store
Developers are important partners in maintaining a great user experience on Google Play.
• Do not post repetitive content.
• Do not use irrelevant, misleading, or excessive keywords in apps descriptions, titles, or metadata.
• Developers must not attempt to change the placement of any Product in the Store, or manipulate any product ratings or reviews, by unauthorized means such as fraudulent installs, paid or fake reviews or ratings, or by offering incentives to rate products.
• Apps that are created by an automated tool or wizard service must not be submitted to Google Play by the operator of that service on behalf of other persons.
• Do not post an app where the primary functionality is to:
o Drive affiliate traffic to a website or
o Provide a webview of a website not owned or administered by you (unless you have permission from the website owner/administrator to do so)
• Do not send SMS, email, or other messages on behalf of the user without providing the user with the ability to confirm content and intended recipient.

Paid and Free Applications
• App purchases: Developers charging for applications and downloads from Google Play must do so by using Google Play’s payment system.
• In-app purchases:
o Developers offering virtual goods or currencies within a game downloaded from Google Play must use Google Play’s in-app billing service as the method of payment.
o Developers offering additional content, services or functionality within another category of app downloaded from Google Play must use Google Play’s in-app billing service as the method of payment, except:
 where payment is primarily for physical goods or services (e.g. buying movie tickets, or buying a publication where the price also includes a hard copy subscription); or
 where payment is for digital content or goods that may be consumed outside of the application itself (e.g. buying songs that can be played on other music players).
Developers must not mislead users about the applications they are selling nor about any in-app services, goods, content or functionality they are selling.

Subscriptions and Cancellations
Google’s subscription cancellation policy is that a user will not receive a refund for the current billing period when canceling a subscription, but will continue to receive issues and updates of the relevant subscription content (if any) for the remainder of the billing period, regardless of the cancellation.
You (as the content or access provider) may implement a more flexible refund policy with your users directly, and it is your responsibility to notify your users of those policies and ensure that the policies comply with applicable law.

Ad Policy
The policy below covers all ads that are implemented in and bundled with apps. These rules are important in maintaining a positive experience for everyone using Android apps from Google Play. Be sure to check back from time to time, as these policies may change.

      [b]1.	Developer Terms apply to the entire user experience of your application[/b]

Please be aware that Google’s Developer Distribution Agreement and Developer Program Policies (together, “Developer Terms”) apply to each application (“app”) as well as any ads or third-party libraries bundled or made available through the app. Offer your users a consistent, policy compliant, and well communicated user experience.
Ads are considered part of your app for purposes of content review and compliance with the Developer Terms. Therefore all of the policies referenced above also apply. Please take care to use advertising which does not violate the Developer Terms.
Ads which are inconsistent with the app’s content rating also violate our Developer Terms.

      [b]2.	Ads Context[/b]

Ads must not simulate or impersonate the user interface of any app, or notification and warning elements of an operating system.

      [b]3.	Ad Walls and Interstitial Ads[/b]

Interstitial ads may only be displayed inside of the app they came with. Forcing the user to click on ads or submit personal information for advertising purposes in order to fully use an app is prohibited. 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.

      [b]4.	Interfering with Apps and Third-party Ads[/b]

Ads associated with your app must not interfere with other apps or their ads.

Policy Enforcement
In the event that your application is removed from Google Play, you will receive an email notification to that effect. If you have any questions or concerns regarding a removal or a rating/comment from a user, you may contact us at http://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer. Serious or repeated violations of the Developer Distribution Agreement or this Content Policy will result in account termination. Repeated infringement of intellectual property rights, including copyright, will also result in account termination. For more information on Google’s copyright policies, please see here.

sorry, but where exactly is your analysis? you just copy/pasted the Google Policy, I don’t see where is your opinion/thoughts ))

Coming soon!

Which 3 Networks would you like first?

Widdit, AppBrain and Airpush.

Hi @ballada,

Thank you for your reply.

Please pick a replacement for Widdit, since from my experience and what I have read about Widdit, there product is still premature and suffers from many bugs.

okk, startapp,appwiz,mobario

OK - I know has bugs. But most important is their compatibility with Google Developer Policy. What Your opinion?

HI Guys,

I think I am going to analyze AirPush, StartApp, Mobario, and AppWiz.

I think I have gathered enough material and most developers are most interested in these 4. Any comments before starting?

AppBrain would be important too, still not sure if it’s compliant.

In the meantime: Who is TapContext??? Where are they from? Are they real? Why are they covering up from where they are from? Are they located in a dentist clinic or an old building that has gates and bars on it. What do you think?

Never trust a dentist.

Widdit also

Haha 404 building not found :wink:

Hi Developers,

What is System Interference? What is Google trying to say with this paragraph? Let’s analyze and see who is not following this rule…

In my example below, “Galaxy S4 Magic Forest” has StartApp integrated in its app.

An app downloaded from Google Play (or its components or derivative elements) must not make changes to the user’s device outside of the app without the user’s knowledge and consent.

There is now EULA and in the permissions it says nothing about changing the default search (Originally, Google Search)

This includes behavior such as replacing or reordering the default presentation of apps, widgets, or the settings on the device. If an app makes such changes with the user’s knowledge and consent, it must be clear to the user which app has made the change and the user must be able to reverse the change easily, or by uninstalling the app altogether.

As you will see below, the user does not know which app it installed that changed the default, and furthermore, even after uninstalling the original app that made the change, the situation remains the same.

Apps and their ads must not add homescreen shortcuts, browser bookmarks, or icons on the user’s device as a service to third parties or for advertising purposes.

The change that StartApp does to the default Search, is done by changing the browser bookmarks. This is a clear violation of the new policy and even with a EULA, Google does not permit.

All these points bring me to conclude that if you are using StartApp’s SDK which includes this monetization method, your app will be flagged, removed and your developer’s account banned.
No matter the number of installs, you will be found by Google Police.

In my opinion, StartApp is being greedy and unfair to developers by claiming to be compliant. Check for yourself and share your thoughts.

None of the images you attached are coming up.

StartApp and AppWiz and I think another ad network all feature the change of the user’s homepage in their SDKs. The argument is the they are not adding a bookmark, but adding a homepage. This is technically different and is the only reason why they still feature this in their SDKs.

The big problem with Google’s policy updates (and many other company’s policy updates for that matter) is that the terminology used can be applied so broadly.
Google have built it so that they can almost claim violation in any case they choose to.

For example:
Google could argue that the homepage change is a bookmark.

They could argue that an exit-interstitial is outside of the app.

They could argue that an ad network’s EULA does not inform a user about an out-of-app modification to a good enough degree.

I mean the entire line

“Apps and their ads must not add homescreen shortcuts, browser bookmarks, or icons on the user’s device as a service to third parties or for advertising purposes.”
could be used to declare violation of any out of app ad units.

The fact of the matter is that this is a risky business for anyone who goes beyond in-app ads. Only the most successful apps and generally successful games can bring in a viable revenue stream using traditional ad units (along with IAP etc).
Any other app or game just has to take risks, unless you aren’t bothered about making less money.

By January we will all have a great idea of what networks and ad types are compliant and viable for our apps and games, but even then Google can easily pull out the ban-hammer or even just re-update their policies.

I believe any network that is claiming compliance truly believes that they are compliant, but it all boils down to what Google want to enforce: and ONLY Google knows what it wants to enforce.

It’s the old story, can a Homepage change be considered a bookmark? I’m sure if Google wants it to be, then it will be.

That part, especially not reverting the changes after uninstalling it’s a clear violation from StartApp and Appwiz (and maybe others). Thank you for bringing that up.

Changing home page is clear violation of “must not make changes to the user’s device outside of the app”. Browser is outside the app and they are changing it’s settings.

The whole sentence is:
“An app downloaded from Google Play (or its components or derivative elements) must not make changes to the user’s device outside of the app without the user’s knowledge and consent.
Both Startp and AppWiz displays EULA where it is written that users homepage will be changed.

Hi @vbodzio,

Let’s say what you are saying is correct (which I think that half correct, since this issue here is the search), StartApp cannot leave the situation the same with its search after the app has been removed. It must be returned to the default state. Do you agree?