Google Has Changes Google Play’s Content Policy; Now No More Intrusive Ads

Google is developing a positive experience for Google Play. Some are saying that Google is trying to move away from its Wild West image and that is good. From now the content of your app in Google Play must be rated in accordance with our Content Rating Guidelines which means:

All the developers must be labeling their applications in accordance with Google Play ratings system. It has four different levels:

• Everyone
• Low maturity
• Medium maturity
• High maturity

All applications should adhere to the Google Play Developer Content Policy. Now following items in the list must not be added in Google Play by any how –

1. No Sexually Explicit Material
2. No Violence and Bullying
3. No Hate Speech
4. No Impersonation or Deceptive Behavior
5. No unauthorized publishing of others Personal and Confidential Information
6. No infringe on the intellectual property rights of others
7. No Illegal Activities
8. No Gambling
9. No Dangerous Products like transmitting of viruses, worms, defects, Trojan horses, malware etc.

Applications must not create unpredictable network usage that has an adverse impact on a user’s service charges or an Authorized Carrier’s network.

For Spams in Google Play Store:

1. No repetitive content posting.
2. No attempt to manipulate search ranking at Google Play Store  by misleading keywords in product’s description.
3. Product descriptions should not be misleading or loaded with keywords in an attempt to manipulate ranking or relevancy in the Store’s search results.
4. No attempt to change the placement of any Product by multiple rating done by any how.
5. No submission of apps that are created by some automated tool or service by the operator of that service on behalf of other persons.
6. No submission of apps with primary functionality of driving traffic to a particular website.
7. No submission of apps with primary functionality of providing a webview of other’s website without permission
8. No sending of SMS, email etc on the behalf of the user without permission. You must provide user with the ability to confirm content and intended recipient.

Developer must use  Google Play’s payment system for charging for Apps and the developers who are offering additional content, services or functionality within an application downloaded from Google Play must use Google Play’s payment system as the method of payment, except in case payment is primarily for physical goods or services and if payment is for digital content or goods that may be consumed outside of the application itself. View Details

Following is the email message for developers:

Hello Google Play Developer,

We are constantly striving to make Google Play a great community for developers and consumers. This requires us to update our policies when we launch new features, like subscription billing, and also when we see unhealthy behavior, like deceptive app names and spammy notifications. This email is to notify you that we’ve made some changes to our policies which are highlighted below.

– We’ve added clearer details to the payment policy, and guidelines on how we will handle cancellations in our new subscription billing feature

– We are restricting the use of names or icons confusingly similar to existing system apps in order to reduce user confusion

– We are providing more detail on the kinds of dangerous products that are not allowed on Google Play. For example, apps that disclose personal information without authorization are not allowed.

– We are giving more examples of practices that violate the spam policy.

Additionally, we are adding a new section that addresses ad behavior in apps. First, we make it clear that ads in your app must follow the same rules as the app itself. Also, it is important to us that ads don’t negatively affect the experience by deceiving consumers or using disruptive behavior such as obstructing access to apps and interfering with other ads.

Please take a look at the Google Play Developer Program Policy at http://play.google.com/about/developer-content-policy.html to see all the changes and make sure your app complies with our updated policies.

Any new apps or app updates published after this notification will be immediately subject to the latest version of the Program Policy. If you find any existing apps in your catalog that don’t comply, we ask you to fix and republish the application within 30 calendar days of receiving this email. After this period, existing applications discovered to be in violation may be subject to warning or removal from Google Play.

Regards,

Google Play Team