Yesterday my most downloaded app has been suspended. The reason for the suspension is the following:
REASON FOR REMOVAL: Violation of [section 4.3](http://play.google.com/about/developer-distribution-agreement.html#use) of the Developer Distribution Agreement.
We classify a user’s call logs as private and confidential information. Apps which upload a user’s call logs to a service without making this clear to the user and obtaining the user’s explicit consent are regarded as being in violation of [section 4.3 of the DDA](http://play.google.com/about/developer-distribution-agreement.html#use).
This happened after I’ve integrated the StartApp’s Post Call Manager in my apps. This is the only app suspended in my account.
However because I want to upload a new .apk and continue developing the current application I’ve emailed the Play Store Support team about some more info and they replied the following:
Our system detected that [b]xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx[/b] is uploading users's incoming call numbers to flurry.com without explicit user consent, which violates the Developer Distribution Agreement for Google Play.
To have your app reinstated, you will have to bring your app into compliance with [section 4.3 of the Developer Distribution Agreement](http://play.google.com/about/developer-distribution-agreement.html#use).
As I checked the Post Call Manager is related to flurry.com which confirms my warns.
Currently I’m awaiting a response from them to know if I’ll be able to upload the new .apk without the Post Call Manager or I should be uploading it as a brand new app.
I’m very frustrated. I’ve contacted StartApp about the issue but they just send me an email template saying that they sorry to hear that from me bla-bla…
I’m very surprised that Google did answer me … this is the first time that I’ve got in touch with them.
However in the worst case I’ll upload my app as a new one … but I really want to continue developing the current one.
I’ll update the thread once I have some more info.
I’m really satisfied from StartApp network and I’ll continue use it but that Call Manager costed me a loss of money, because I wasn’t familiar what it really does and now my app is suspended.
Impressed that you actually got an answer from Google Play that actually pinpoints the problem. I’ve recently been deactivated from Admob, and I don’t know why. However as I was sniffing around for new ad networks, I checked out StartApp, and I was just yesterday wondering if Post Call manager was Google compliant. From your experience, it’s better to stay away I reckon.
Flurry (a.k.a. “flurry.com”) is a company which provides an app analytics service, similar to Google Analytics. They also do app monetization now. I’ve never heard of them being associated with StartApp in any way. How did you come to this conclusion?
Regardless of what happened in your particular case, I’d be very wary of any out-of-app SDKs after what happened to Pingjam. It seems Google is really cracking down on enforcing their policies. We’re still not exactly sure exactly how to interpret those policies, but for now I would recommend staying away from any out-of-app ad formats. StartApp even offers a completely in-app SDK with app wall interstitials. That seems like a much safer option at the moment.
Did you use only StartApp Post Call Manager without Startapp In-App ads and browser homepage? Did you use on exit app wall interstitials (onBackPressed implementation and home button pressed implementation)?
ok. So, you used statApp exit ads and search tool and there was no problem. No google notifications. When you’ve added post call manager google suspended your app.
From this scenario we can assume that StartApp exitAds and homepage search is google compliant. That is a good news.
David, Startapp is using Flurry Analytics to track user conversions and some other performance metrics to identify their ROI from different devices. However, since there are passing Phone numbers as a unique parameter and tracking devices using phone numbers, the postcall product is a clear violation.
I just posted yesterday about startapp product might not be compatible.
Just became a victim of google’s app ban storm. one of my best downloading app got banned for “system interference”. but i haven’t done anything wrong. i was using both StartApp and Airpush interstitial ads only. StartApp ads seems to be pretty fast so i used one of interstitial on exit. may be that could be the reason for ban. it seems lots of apps got banned in last few weeks, some thing coming up and im expecting a hard time
Well its kinda obvious that the post call manager and the widdit or mobario’s solutions are in the gray area and won’t last long, I would suggest you use them only in apps you are willing to take the risk of getting banned.
Just an update - we are working with this developer and our tech team to take a closer look.
At this moment, it still looks as some sort of isolated incident, and there is no broad removal of other applications. Again, no other apps using our Post Call Manager were removed due to this (odd) reason or any other reason. And there are several thousand applications live with this SDK.
As always, we will keep everyone updated with what we find, but at the moment it looks like this is not a broad issue with any of our SDK’s.
I’ve re-uploaded the app without the Post Call Manager.
It’s strange that Google’s Team contacted me once and asked me about details but after that they ignored my other emails.
Same goes for StartApp … no response from them either …
It’s strange that I’ve sent the new .apk to Google which is compliant with their policy but they didn’t respond and so I wasn’t able to upload the new .apk file to continue developing my current app and the advice from the email was to upload a new one…
So that means that once your app is being suspended there is no going back.
Hope that this will not affect the ranking of my other apps from this account.
Through further investigation, the violating SDK is the net.mz.callflakessdk.
Upon further review, we've accepted your appeal and have reinstated your app, based on the condition that you will remove the violating SDK.
You will need to log back into your Google Play Developer Console to re-publish the application so it is available again on Google Play.
I’ve attached an image showing that this is placed under the StartApp’s Post Call Manager.
The two replies from Google are pointing the problem in two different packages, but however they are both placed under the Post Call Manager.
I’m very happy that my application has been unsuspended.
It seems that if you contact Google with a reasonable email they will reply you back
Happy to hear your app back. I am not use post call but there are some people here have app ban/warn only with StartApp exist ad. And i use it in some of mine
saying that they sorry to hear that from me bla-bla…
