Did you get a Google play content rating change recently?

With the new content rating system I guess a few people got that email recently:


This is a notification that the content rating of your application, with package ID XXX, has been changed to UNRATED. Unrated apps may not be visible to users who use content filtering on the Play Store.

REASON FOR CONTENT RATING CHANGE: Violation of the Google Play content rating policy.

These guidelines apply to all content in your app, including user generated content, in-app products, and advertisements.

After a regular review, we’ve determined that your app has an inaccurate content rating. Please retake the content rating questionnaire for your app and submit an update.

If you feel we have made this determination in error, you can submit an appeal on the Google Play Help Center.

We appreciate your help with ensuring an accurate content rating experience for Google Play users.

The Google Play Team


We use admob in our apps and blocked several sensitive category like:

Cosmetic procedures & body modification
Dating
Drugs & supplements
References to sex & sexuality
Sexual & reproductive health
Social casino games

but we are still getting that email from google. What did you do if you use admob or others ad networks to make sure you don’t have those email anymore?

Let’s talk about this.

no body had this email with the new rating system?

What do you have in your app , apart from ad?
and what type of app is that? (Game/violence/educational/reference/religious ???)

Looks like after this rating policy has been enforced google is cleaning the play store. Huge ton of apps have been removed from google play?

Is that true, any one has got any info regarding the same? around 30% of the app from google play has been removed? is that true?

Is that just because you didn’t fill out the rating questionnaire?
You probably just need to do that and the issue will be resolved.

well we did the questionary the first of may so this is not the problem, we do casual game app and the only thing we have is admob in our apps.

but what about if there is an ads about a movie with violence? this ads wil not be in the sensitive category…what do you guys did about it?

The behavior of Google starts getting ridiculous. If they force us to provide a content rating, they should also be able to provide such a filter for AdMob.
If not, the only way seems to be rating all apps with AdMob ads in the highest category.

It’s the same with other ads. I think all of us have seen Admob ads like “Your phone is infected. Tap here to remove virus”.
That’s clearly against the Google Play policy. Nevertheless, Admob doesn’t care about removing such crap.
Disabling the category ‘Antivirus’ helped for some time, but now the advertisers seems use different categories for that bullshit.

You could rate your app with higher content rating.

Well, that’s what I wrote.
But which rating is appropriate?
I think everybody would have to choose the highest possible rating because AdMob will not guarantee they won’t deliver ads for porn, right?
The ridiculous thing is that developers are responsible for one Google department is breaking rules of another Google department.

The thing is why we have to rate a game Teen (13+) or Mature (17+), when these app games are usually for kids? I understand that the ads may be not appropriate for kids but if it is the case, write a category named ‘‘not suitable for kids’’. We could click there and it would disable all the ads inside.

It make no sense to me to have a game for kids and to have a rating at Teen (13+) or Mature (17+). Admob and google should be really clear about it*don’t you think?

You can turn off different categories, disable specific URLs and even review and block ads on a visual level.
It is a bit of a grey area overall though I admit.

I used to have everything as “medium maturity” in the old system just to be on the safe side with the ad networks.

I was chatting with google support today, and i raised this issue. So the guy said “answer truthfully your questionaire
it is about the content of the app, you cannot answer about ads” and then he added “but be careful what kind of ads
you have in your app” …

Yannis I think most of us did it for the low and medium maturity but now it is different.

google should be more specific with admob and ads to block… how did you chat with google? I used to see a live chat button in the dashboard but it is not tehre anymore

There is a button in the developer console (?) with options chat or email. I think it depends on the account
which options each account has (depending on downloads or something)

What Happens if you don’t fill out the rating? Are apps getting banned? I can’t see a specific information about that anywhere…

If you don’t fill out the rating your apps willb e unrated and you willl not be able to update it until you fill out the rating questionary again.

No body talked about sensitive category but did you guys remove all your sensitive category or you did increase the rating to 10+ or 13+ ?

Today after updating an App, I got this message from Google

This is a notification that your application submission, XXXXXXX, for package ID XXXXXXXXX, has been rejected. If this submission was an update to an existing app, the version published prior to this update is still available on Google Play.

Please address the issue described below, then submit an update with your changes.

REASON FOR REJECTION:Violation of the Google Play content rating policy.

These guidelines apply to all content in your app, including user generated content, in-app products, and advertisements.

After a regular review, we’ve determined that your app has an inaccurate content rating. Please retake the content rating questionnaire for your app and resubmit your app for publishing.

All submission rejections are tracked. Repeated rejections due to policy violations will result in app suspension, at which point this app will count as a strike against the good standing of your developer account and no longer be available on Google Play.

If you feel we have made this determination in error, you can submit an appeal on the Google Play Help Center.

The Google Play Team

All my questionnaires are rated 12+ (mostly from Gambling and Sexual references such as Gay Chat apps).
I don’t think I noticed any other kind of Ads (I use StartApp and MobileCore) that may force to modify the Questionnaires in other categories. (the app itself has nothing to check too)

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