Google Play is the home to millions of Android apps. Many users believe that apps downloaded from Google Play are of high quality and are free from worms and malicious scripts, which is true for most of the cases, but not always.
To maintain user’s privacy and security Google Play has to reinforce very strict policies and guidelines for the app developers. But just like all things, it comes at a price. The price of taking down otherwise good apps of those developers who forget to follow a few guidelines.
We all get frustrated to see our favourite app being pulled down Google Play, but many a times this happens due to misunderstanding of the rules.
Why would anyone creating a very useful and clean app not follow the instructions completely! This doesn’t make sense. Right? What if the developer couldn’t understand a few instructions properly and hence made some mistakes?
Google doesn’t want to let that happen and has hence updated the Developer Program Policy Center with new set of guidelines.
There are separate instructions for various categories and their sub-categories. The most interesting part is that these instructions are organised according to various themes as follows:
- Restricted Content– This part covers all aspect related to content including sexually explicit content, hate speech, gambling, illegal activities, violence, child endangerment, bullying and harassment, etc.
- Intellectual Property, Deception, and Spam– These guidelines would take care of issues related to intellectual properties, impersonation, deceptive behavior, and spam.
- Privacy and Security– These set of guidelines would help you find the answers to questions related to the safety of your app. It covers aspects like user data, device and network abuse, and malicious behaviour.
- Monetisation and Ads– These guidelines help you find out if your app’s business practices support a healthy ecosystem or not. This covers all parameters related to payments, subscriptions and cancellations, and Ads.
- Store Listing and Promotion– These are one of the most important guidelines that all new app developers must adhere to. Please ensure that your app doesn’t use unfair means and tactics for attracting new users. You must also follow all the rules related to app promotion, metadata, ratings, reviews, and more.
- Enforcement– These guidelines cover the enforcement part of things including policy coverage, enforcement process, managing and reporting policy violations.
- Updates and Other Resources– This section includes new updates and changes to the Developer Program Policies. It also includes resources and additional requirements for special programs.
If your apps follow these guidelines religiously then the chances of them getting taken down are very few. These policies would also be of great help to first-time app developers who would otherwise get too confused to design app for Google Play.
Do you think that enforcing such policies would help improve the overall quality of apps on Google Play? Or do you believe that those with malicious intent can and would come up ways to get around these policies? Let us know your thoughts via the comments below.
