Google revises its App policy

With a site announcement and an email sent to App developers, Google announced that it has updated the App development guidelines as well as graphically retouched the developer console.

The text of the email reads more or less like this:

Hello Google Play developers,
we are pleased to announce the launch of a redesigned Google Play Policy Center developer website, an online resource that strives to provide developers with greater transparency and understanding of our program.

This redesign includes a new organizational structure for the developer program policy, which have been grouped into six themes. We have also introduced detailed guidelines and visual examples to help better understand the policies.

In our ongoing effort to make Google Play the most reputable community for developers and consumers, we have also taken the opportunity to update some policies in line with current practices, some of which are highlighted below.

• We have updated our ads policy to ban inappropriate ads.
• We have clarified our ads policy to prohibit certain behaviors that interfere with device functionality.
• We have introduced restrictions on applications that attempt to bypass the device’s power saving functions under the device and network abuse policy.
• We have clarified our user data policy to include a privacy protection requirement in the collection of contact/address book data.

Any new applications or app updates published after notification will be immediately subject to the latest version of the developer policy. If you have any existing non-compliant applications, we ask you to unpublish or update the App publication and republish it within 30 days of receiving this e-mail. After this period, existing applications in violation may be subject to warning or removal from Google Play.

Although the “policy of “Google” is by far less restrictive than that of Apple, on the mobile Applications front, controls by the “Mountain View” corporation have increased recently. Since 2015, Google has established an in-house team to monitor app violations in addition to automatically scanning applications to identify content violations.

However, despite a set of guidelines to inform developers of what is allowed and what is not on “Google Play“, in terms of app content, behavior, and advertising use, some developers still report problems getting their application approved.