i have an application with 9.000.000 downloads with only startApp Exit Ads included (and yes it is correctly implemented)
and this is what i received today:
[b]this is a notification that your application, ********, with package ID ************, Is currently in violation of our developer terms./p>
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.
Please refer to the ad walls policy help article for more information.Your application will be removed if you do not make modifications to bring it into compliance within 7 days of the issuance of this notification. If you have additional applications in your catalog, please also review them for compliance.
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. If your account is terminated, payments will cease and Google may recover the proceeds of any past sales and the cost of any associated fees (such as chargebacks and payment transaction fees) from you.
I’ve been worrying about all my different exit ads.
So do you think the problem is with “Interstitial ads may only be displayed inside of the app they came with.” or “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.”
Was the issue a slow-loading exit ad that shows up too late or an unclear Close button?
i don’t know where is the problem… and you know what? it’s not my problem anymore. i am currently updating all my packages to remove startapp sdk
bye bye ariel
dude forget all this talk, switch to admob asap, like faster than asap, make sure it’s your only sdk, this is the only way your safety can be guaranteed
It is clear with the recent pingjam debacle that they can isolate sdk’s and remove your app within seconds, they are already probably building the detection system for widdit, mobario, startapp and others to at whim press the ad sdk nuclear button. Look they did it on a Friday, that shows you that they have a sense of humor about it and I can appreciate that. We play by their rules or we don’t play at all. I for one find it to be a challenge, just don’t rely on this income as your sole revenue, get and keep a real job, take this on as a potentially lucrative hobby. Keep your code clean, stop adding all those fucking sdk’s and maybe you can be lucky like this developer below and have a shitty, copyright violating app with 1.8 million downloads and get missed by the pingjam sdk nuclear assault, you can kill a million cockroaches but there will always be a few that survive
StartApp is my major Ad network now. Using Interstitial , exit ad, and post call manager . I have send a email to StartApp yesterday about the post call manager. They said it is safe. But can we believe them ?
StartApp’s reply:
Thank you for contacting us with your questions about the post call manager.
The post call manager is fully compliant with Google Play’s ad policy. According to the policy, the user needs to provide consent as well as provide options for opting out. We successfully do this by using our EULA screen that explains all the changes made on the device. The Post Call Manager is easily reversible by pushing the disable button, and the browser homepage can be removed by adjusting the settings. This makes it all compliant to the policy.
If you would like to stop the post call manager, you will need to update your app.
Please let me know if you have any other questions.
The only ban reason I can think of is the “x” close button too small to be notice. Users might seems to be force to click on the ads. StartApp paying is good but I guess I have to switch back to lower revenue Admob Interstitial if got no choice. Better be safe than sorry…
No the close button is not an issue. The issue is that startapp ads take time to download. And displaying ads on exit is always fishy (even if we call super.onBackPressed after calling ads API). Appflood inters don’t have explicit close button but a continue button which even doesn’t tell continue what? downloading the advertised ad or continue to the host app. @Actarus, so sorry to hear about that email about so successful app.
As always I will start by sharing some numbers and insights with all of you: We are seeing over 2 million downloads with our new SDKs and tens millions of impressions daily from tens of thousands of apps.
First and foremost, and this goes out to all developers using our service – Please first contact our support ([email protected]), this is of utmost importance. Posting here in the forum is good, but it will not help understand what’s behind this or solve it as it may take some time for us to see this.
As for this case we are waiting to receive more information from the developer in order to explore and understand if there is any issue.
There are tens of thousands of apps, live today in the Play Store, running our interstitals and ExitAds and have been running them for many months.
On a technical note – Our banners are preloaded and have a specifically quick loading time. We’re working tremendously hard to achieve this and looking back, this is something many of you reported.
At the moment, we don’t know if this was directly related to us, and tracking our network of apps, there seems to be NO increase in removed applications.
As always, we will keep you in the loop and be fully transparent. Just asking again, talk to our support first.
But this is very risky. I use start app on exit ads. But what our fellow developer has reported is very scary. Could it be that ads shown when application closes is not allowed since really the ad is technically outside the app? I am thinking of removing startapp after this. What do you guys think?
Ive removed all exitads, its not like it were making that much anyway. Im sorry but i cant trust what startapp has to say as they didnt get any approval from google regarding what ads they can show, better safe than sorry
Not only StartApp, it looks like all exit ads might be not allowed. I will be removing AppBrain next week almost certainly this time. It will cost me though, not much, but still significantly.
Did anyone else got banned for using StartApp exit ads? Only one report is really not convincing enough. If there are more reports of this I will jump into remove-exit-ads wagon immediately, though.
Yes it seems that i’m the first on this forum to report a problem with Exit Ads… I was only using StartApp ExitAds … with only onBackPressed implemented. I removed startapp in my packages and hope i will be still alive at the end of the 7 days warning. I’m in the software industry for 10 years
i’ve made 3 companies… so trust me it’s not my first issue
I hope that startApp is not the source of the problem, but i have doubt. i will work with ariel and keep you informed…
This application is live on market since early 2010… don’t want to lose it
