Apparently the word "Saga" is now banned...

Hey guys, as you know it is very easy these days to get suspended or even banned. My friend just received this and thought I’d give you guys a heads up…

REASON FOR REMOVAL: Alleged trademark infringement.Google has been notified that aspects of your application,---------, allegedly infringe upon the trademarks of others, and it has been removed from the Google Play Store due to a violation of the Content Policy.All violations are tracked. Serious or repeated violations of any nature will result in the termination of your developer account, and investigation and possible termination of related Google accounts.
You may contact King.com Ltd at ipking.com. If King.com Ltd contacts us specifically authorizing your app to be re-published, and your app does not otherwise violate the Developer Distribution Agreement and Content Policy, we will reinstate the app.Please note that we have included a text copy of the Infringement Notice we received for your reference. If you have any further concerns about this issue, please address them directly to the complainant in the Infringement Notice provided below:
The Google Play TeamText Copy of Infringement Notice:fullname: Sophie Hallstromyourtitle: IP Paralegalcompanyname: King.com Ltdaddress: 10th Floor, Central St Giles1 St Giles High Streetcountryresidence: GBcontactemailnoprefill: ip
king.comtrademarkrelationship: Employeetmwork: SAGAandroidappurl:trademarkexplain: King.com Ltd have built up a SAGA family of marksthrough a series of trade marks for example SAGA, CANDY CRUSH SAGA, PETRESCUE SAGA, BUBBLE WITCH SAGA, FARM HEROES SAGA.
The use of SAGA in yourapp name is likely to lead to consumer confusion and damage to our brandwith people associating your game with our SAGA family of games. This usetakes unfair advantage of our rights. Please remove the word SAGA from yourapp.

Funny huh … Anyway be careful :beer:

Thanks for the heads up but this is old news mate

Really? Well that’s news to me. Hopefully it can help others out

Thanx for the info :slight_smile:

I think there was a big thread where users wrote down all these “do not use” words. Yea Saga was mentioned.

At first I read this as “Sega” and thought “Well of course!” But this is ridiculous!

Here is the list: http://forums.makingmoneywithandroid.com/android-development/10611-not-allowed-list-things.html - if you know more, comment there, I try to only list those not obvious there.

^^Was actually looking for this thread after it was mentioned earlier.Thanks

Well, I would say that’s actually quite a good move by Google I guess they are now trying to put Candy Crush game over the top ! :stuck_out_tongue:

I’m not a lawyer, but based on research i’ve done, use of trademarked words is allowed by Nominative Fair Use - meaning that if used as a descriptor (not a title) and it is necessary for your users to understand your app, then you can use it.

I think Google should’ve temporarily suspended the app and asked to have the issues addressed instead of permanently suspending the app as they did. They should’ve offered the option of just renaming the app and then re-publishing it with the same package name, or something to that effect.

Either way, the point of me posting here is to ask for signatures on my Change petition at https://www.change.org/p/google-respect-small-business-2 to convince Google to change some policies on how the handle these issues. I’ll be putting a lot of work into it over the next few weeks to gain awareness and pressure Google.