I am publishing an apk on Google Play Store. But my apk is rejected because they say my app is violating Google Impersonation Policy. But they never mentioned what is the reason. I am publishing it to production. Then I found possible violations after I have read the policy.
As you can see in the screenshots, I am using logos of Whatsapp, Facebook, Viber for social sharing purpose. I am also using Football Team and League Logos. According to the impersonation policy, that can be the only possible reason why my app is suspended. But I think that logos should be allowed to use. In the policy, it states that if I am using logo or copyright thing of others, I can use them if I can show them the permission.
For Facebook logo, Viber logo and Whatsapp Logo, where can I get that permission? Besides, it is not possible to get permission from all football teams to use their logos. Then I found this link - How to check an app violates Google's the impersonation policy or not. In the green answer, it says if I tried publishing as Alpha testing, I will get the reason of suspended. So when I tried with Alpha testing on Google Play Store, it also suspended. But it does not mention the reason of suspended as well. Here is the email I received:
What is the possible reason my app was suspended? Maybe because of the reason I mentioned? If they are, how can I solve it?
To get the Q & A into an usable answer:
Photo's and logo's have copyrights on them. As a programmer that means you cannot use them without (explicit) permission from the owner. Country flags do not fall under that. Google checks for this before release.
Note:
If you contact the owner of an image and ask for permission use, they might ask for a usage fee.
If you use images that you get from an API, check the user agreement. If not clear contact the creator of the API.
Social sharing logo's and button will have details on this, but in general it makes very little sense for them to limit their use.
Why go trough all this trouble?
Pay people for their work, don't steal.
You can get sued if you use images without permission.
Related
My app update has been rejected and wasn't published due to a policy violation.
The reason is for some security reasons we've blacklisted certain countries and their IPs from our network. Due to that Google Play developer were not able to access the privacy policy URL in the store listing.
Email from google regarding rejection:
Publishing status: Rejected
After review, your app has been rejected and wasn't published due to a policy violation. If you submitted an update, the previous version of your app is still available on Google Play. However, your app may be subject to removal if you do not resolve the issue outlined below by October 1, 2019.
Reasons of violation
Issue: Violation of Families Policy Requirements
Apps that contain elements that appeal to children must comply with all Families Policy Requirements. We found the following issue(s) with your app:
Eligibility Issue
Privacy policy
You must provide a link to your app's privacy policy on your app's store listing page. This link must be maintained at all times while the app is available on Google Play, and it must link to a privacy policy that, among other things, accurately describes your app’s data collection and use. Please provide a link to a valid privacy policy in your app's store listing page in the Play Console. For more details, please refer to the Privacy policy section (#6) of the Families Policy Requirements.
What I did
I contacted Google via support email [googleplay-developer-support#google.com] two days [actually asked on Saturday (21/09/19)] back asking them to kindly share their location where they’re trying to access our privacy policy URL so that we can add it to our white-list.
They provided me the 48 hours time they will respond. But Google is not responding to my emails.
What should I do next?
Thanks.
As of February 2021, the Google Play Console privacy policy link section is moved to another page.
Steps By Steps Guide To Access Privacy Policy Link Section:
Go to Google Play Console.
On left side bar, select App content under Policy section.
On App content page, select Manage under Privacy policy section.
On Privacy Policy page, add your app privacy policy url in the input box and click Save button.
Done!
Understand the following points:
1. Privacy policy URL should be globally accessible.
2. If you're having security concerns with your URL to make it globally accessible then,
make the Privacy Policy page accessible for all and apply the location-based security to the rest of the website.
You can either edit the security privacy for privacy page or use blogger or something similar. Either way, privacy policy URL should be globally accessible. For more, you can contact security experts.
3. If you're excepting Google to respond with their location then you're just wrong. Forget about it.
I had faced a similar situation. My privacy policy URL was broken. So after editing the privacy policy URL from "Policy status" which can be accessible from the left menu section under the "Policy" Section at the bottom of the left menu.
To send to review you have to select "Publishing overview" from the left menu and you can see your changes in the review. And you can send the app for review
For those having trouble adding the privacy policy link follow these steps:
Add a privacy policy
1 Sign in to your Play Console.
2 Select an app.
3 Select Store presence > App content.
4 Under "Privacy Policy," click Start or Manage.
This is how it is described here, in the official documentation.
We experienced this problem with 2 apps:
First App: I received a message saying that my update was rejected because of the violation on the Family program alleging that it was crashing or giving an error (pretty generic message without any detail at all), I enter in contact on the support form and they send an email asking for me to read the terms and to update my APK number and submit again, I read the terms, I already had complied with everything so I replied saying that, we already comply with everyhting and we tested the APK and OBB installation and game play, all good, please send more details, they replied copying and pasting the same message, I once more insisted and asked for them to explain the problem, they replied asking for update my APK version and submit again, I said this will solve no crashes, please explain what is the problem and the support called Sara highlighted in the message asking to update the APK version, kind of talking with a machine that do not responded what I asked, but I updated my APK version, submitted again and... Worked. Why? For some reason they will not explain, my guess is they just marked my APK as dirty as an attempt to remove apps that the developers don't update, there's no other logical thing I can think off.
Second App: This one I didn't had a happy end as the previous one, I tried the technique of updating the APK version 6 times, none worked, I asked help on the form (many times), they just copy and paste the message about read the Terms, I started to insist for some details, provided them with many proves that my APK+OBB files sent to Google Play are working fine, and asked for any clue about this "problem", like a device model and Android Version that they experienced it (isn't the minimum they suppose to provide us?) but after requesting this many times, for the first time the support guy called Arthur didn't copied and pasted and finally wrote an email, his answer was:
Hi Developer,
Thanks again for contacting the Google Play Team.
As much as I'd like to help, due to policy, I’m not able to provide any more information or a better answer to your question. In our previous email, I made sure to include all the information available to me.
If you have a different question about Google Play policies, please let me know.
Regards,
Arthur
The Google Play Team
It means, he has no information at all about what is the problem, I've trying to solve this for 2 months, our flagship game is threatened of been removed from the store and they can't even explain why, the support team can just copy and paste a generic message without any understanding of our problem and we have no other channel to ask for help.
I'm really disappointed with Google for such poor support for developers.
Well, why I told this long story? To tell you that the person on the support, when them reply to you probably will write a generic message and this will not be someone who actually tested your app, and this person has no idea how to help you because he is not technical and has no way of forwarding you to someone else.
We are in the same boat.
It was about permission, you should enter a URL of your Plicoy privacy, you should mention permission used in the app and in which condition this permission are used.
Where to put the Policy privacy URL?
Open the Google Play Console, select the app concerned, under Store presence select Store Listing and you can find Privacy Policy at the bottom of the page.
please go to your google console -> select your App -> in the left side bar under policy(at the bottom) -> click on App content -> then click on privacy policy and enter your url. Thanks
In my case the problem was that the hosting service didn't support https
Google does not complain if you add a http link in privacy policy , but they will reject it
2 years ago, I have received 2 email from google in the same day ( check below ). How many violations/strikes does my account need now to get suspended indefinitely ?
This is a notification that your application submission, xxx,
for package ID com.xxx.xxx.xxx, 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
We’re always looking for ways to improve. Please share your feedback
on Play policy notification emails by completing this brief survey.
This is a notification that your application, xxx,
with package ID com.xxx.xxx.xxx, has been
suspended from the Google Play Store.
REASON FOR SUSPENSION:Violation of the impersonation or deceptive
behavior provisions of the Content Policy. Please refer to the
impersonation policy help article for more information.
If you are authorized to publish on behalf of the original content or
brand owner, please contact us via the Google Play Help Center and
attach verifiable and accepted proof of permission.
This particular app has been disabled as a policy strike. If your
developer account is still in good standing, you may revise and upload
a policy compliant version of this application as a new package name.
This notification also serves as notice for other apps in your
catalog. You can avoid further app suspensions by immediately ensuring
that no other apps in your catalog are in violation of (but not
limited to) the above policy. Please also ensure your apps’ compliance
with the Developer Distribution Agreement and Content Policy.
All violations are tracked. Additional suspensions of any nature may
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/or the cost of any associated fees (such as
chargebacks and transaction fees) from you.
If you feel we have made this determination in error, you can visit
this Google Play Help Center article.
Only a suspension counts as a strike on your account. Right now you have one suspension. If you get two more suspension your account will be terminated.
I'd like to republish my app using the same package name under a different account. Can this be done?
Background:
I have read many posts about people post about how they lost their keystore or were banned, and the solution provided to them was to republish their app using a new package name and a new keystore. This is not my situation or what I'm looking to do. I do have my password(s)/keystore.
The motivation:
I have published about a half dozen apps to the market, and now that they are growing in user base, I have realized it was a mistake to publish under my personal google account and now wish to do things as a company/LLC to protect my personal assets/account. To that end, I want to effectively transfer the app to another account. using a new wallet account, admob, etc.
I imagine this would be done by unpublishing from my personal account, resigning and then uploading under a new account.
Policy Considerations:
For those people that have been banned, they are obviously breaking some kind of terms of service by republishing the same thing. I am in good standing with Google currently and don't want to risk anything that might make them upset or give reason to ban. I can not figure out whether or not this is against their TOS/policies. Especially since I am trying to migrate towards that they were advocating.
(As an aside, if it were trivially possible, why wouldn't a malicious user publish the same content under numerous accounts?)
Goal:
Retain userbase and package ID so that when I release new versions under the new account all existing users on my personal account will receive those updates.
Resources:
Developer Program Policy; https://play.google.com/about/developer-content-policy.html
Developer Distribution Agreement; https://play.google.com/about/developer-distribution-agreement.html
(There are other agreements but those two seem most relevant)
Summary question: Can I accomplish this transfer without losing users?
It is possible to transfer the ownership of your apps from one account to another in google play store. I found a blog post that tells you the steps to do so:
Visit this link
Fill out the form completely and accurately
Select “Transfer Applications to Another Account” from the Issue Type drop down
Submit Form
Check your E-Mail and reply with the requested information
Forward the E-Mail to the person accepting the app/game transfer and have them reply as requested
Wait for Google to wave their magic wand
After digging deeper I have discovered this
https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/checklist/3294213?hl=en&ref_topic=3450986
Which may be the answer to transferring. I haven't done it yet, though. Plan to respond when I know it works.
I am providing the detailed reply from Google for app violation
Below is the content got from Google when i tried to update my application which is in prod for the past 1.5 years kindly help me with any solution thanks in advance
REASON FOR REMOVAL: Violation of the spam provisions of the Content Policy. Please refer to the keyword spam policy help article for more information.
Your title and/or description must not attempt to impersonate or leverage another popular product without permission.
Do not engage in "keyword stuffing" by loading app descriptions with keywords out of context.
Do not use irrelevant, misleading, or excessive keywords in apps descriptions, titles, or metadata.
This particular app has been disabled as a policy strike. If your developer account is still in good standing, you may revise and upload a policy compliant version of this application as a new package name.
This notification also serves as notice for remaining, unsuspended violations in your catalog, and you may avoid further app suspensions by immediately unpublishing any apps in violation of (but not limited to) the above policy. Once you have resolved any existing violations, you may republish the app(s) at will. Before publishing applications, please ensure your apps’ compliance with the Developer Distribution Agreement and Content Policy.
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.
If you feel we have made this determination in error, you can visit the Google Play Help Center article for additional information regarding this removal.
The Google Play Team
--------------------------------------------
Regards
Gopi.cs
read over the policy stated in the REASON FOR REMOVAL and try to follow the best practice that they state : https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/2985717?hl=en
We have an app that exists in the Google Play store that was created by a developer who is no longer at our company. We own the app and want to remove it, but we don't know what Google account the developer used to publish the app to the store.
Is there any way we can find out what account the app is associated with? If we try to log in under Google accounts we think it might be, Google wants to charge us $25 per guess.
If we can't find the account, is there a way to have Google remove the app for us if we can provide sufficient evidence that it's ours?
If the developer is unavailable or uncooperative, and you can prove that this app includes your intellectual property, you can file a DMCA request with Google, asking them to remove it from the GP store. Read the warnings on the page carefully:
http://support.google.com/bin/request.py?&product=androidmarket&contact_type=lr_dmca
You can't pull down the application from Google Play if you don't have the access to the account which is used to upload that application. If you are lucky and the developer who uploaded the app typed his mail as contact developer mail in application in Google Play, maybe in this way trying to send a mail you can find the account which is used to upload the app, but you can't trust that, because most of the developers and companies have different mails for communicating with the customers and it depends on that.
But if you contact to Google and explain them everything and as I told above if you are lucky you can convince them to delete the app from Google Play. Or the best situation in my opinion is to contact the developer who upload the application and ask him to remove it.
Good luck!
Pretty rough situation. I'm not going to advice you to use a corporate google account in the future, but I think the easiest way is to speak with the developer in person. Then explain to him that there are several clauses in his former contract with you, which concern the intellectual property obligations, signed by him.
If you don't have any, or if he was hired on a freelancer contract, with no mentioning of the above, then you'll have the real deal in the court when he sues you for "his" intellectual property (being th application), uploaded by him on the Play Store.
Of course, this is the worse case scenario, but you should consider it.
If you have nothing left, you can contact Google, as Android-Developer above me suggested, but you risk a denial.
It is a really complicated case and I would like to see the result of it, when you settle the things out.