Facebook and Android - user_groups permission - android

I just received the result of the review of my android app that should use the user_groups permission. They said that my submission is not approved because
The user_groups permission is only approved for apps that let people use Facebook on platforms where Facebook is not already available.
If you're building an app on Android and iOS, for example, you won't be approved for this permission. Web, Desktop and TV apps will also not be granted this permission.
I understand the reason why my submission has been unapproved but searching on the Play Store, I can find a lot of reent app that actually have this permission granted (they show a list of user's group). So, there is a way to obtain this? Is there any other way to read user group's list?
Thank you in advance.

Those Apps are using an older Facebook App created before end of April 2014. They can still use v1.0 of the Graph API, and they don´t need to go through the review process until end of April 2015. They will stop working after that date, because they will not get approved with user_groups.
So there is no way to obtain this permission, unfortunately. Unless you still got a Facebook App created before end of April 2014, but it will definitely stop working after April 2015 so there is no point in using user_groups.

Related

Does REQUEST_INSTALL_PACKAGES permission lead to "Google Play Protect warning"?

I have built 5 app with different sign key and they are not on googleplay market.
And user downloads and installs my apps from little banner ad click ,which I put in my apps(Internal downloader and then install app AND NOT market link!).
I use "REQUEST_INSTALL_PACKAGES" to get install permission and android targetsdk is 28 .Is this permission dangerous to use? And would "googleplay protect" detects it as a dangerous app and show warning protection dialog when user installs it?
Any help will be appreciated.
Please take a look at my answer I posted below:
Why HMS PushKit needs android.permission.REQUEST_INSTALL_PACKAGES
I've given allot of detail into why not to use this permission, and how it poses a security risk for google, (so much to the point that they will reject the app, if any dependency has this permission on its manifest).

How to handle a rejection based on new Android Store policies regarding permissions?

While I am updating an app on Play store. I am getting following error according to the new policy of Google:
I have also checked all the options that are available, but again and again, Google rejects my application.
I am new to Android.
Issue: Violation of Permissions policy
After reviewing your app, we found that it doesn’t qualify to use the requested permissions for the following reason(s):
Based on our review, we found your app’s expressed user experience did not match your declared core functionality {SMS-based financial transactions (e.g., 5 digit messages), and related activity including OTP account verification for financial transactions and fraud detection}. Please remove these permissions from your app.
This is my manifest containing permissions I have declared
SMS permission is no more allowed to read OTP as android is going to give this feature to users out of the box.
You have to register as a messaging app to get SMS and CALL_LOG permissions.
So recently, Google changed its policies, read it at XDA
Same thing happened with my app, It got removed from play store, for using SMS features.
You need to remove those permissions from Android Manifest and if you need to send a message to someone, you need to use Intents to form a message and fill out the messaging app and user has to manually send the message.
Or if you are trying to access SMS permission for automatic OTP, there are other ways to do it.
As it turns out, you need to fill a form. Read this article from Google and refer to this answer on StackOverFlow
Do not update your minSdkVersion in this release. You need to rollout removal of permissions for all of your users.
Try deactivating previous versions of your apk on play console. If you updated minSdkVersion of your app and did not deactivate older apks, older devices are still served the apk with permissions.
This worked for me!

Draw Overlay permission for apps installed from Play Store

Here is a well-known Q/A about draw overlay permission issue. I observed same behavior on my previous apps also, i.e. it was automatically granted when the app is installed from Play Store.
In my recent app, however, I observed that that permission is not granted even if it is installed from Play Store. At first, I thought that this might be a specific problem for our test devices. However, I wanted to be sure about it by tracking the number of such lack-of-permission situations in the wild through my favorite analytics tool.
We published the version that notifies about this incident yesterday, and the analytics say that we had to manually request for this permission at 80 users, in just 1 day. Ouch!!!
The analytics say that this problem occurs in almost all Android versions, from 6.0 to 9. So it is not the case for just a few versions.
Is there any change about this permission recently? Or, does Play Store have some kind of a whitelist (e.g. Facebook takes it automatically) to grant this permission?
Yes, there is a change since beginning of January 2019. For my app I got a first report on 9th January. Only fresh installs of an app are affected.
There are several apps affected, but the selection of apps that still receive the permission automatically seems random. This is a known problem and has been reported to Google, but of course: zero response. See following bug reports for more info:
https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/127690549
https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/37125806
https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/37119304
https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/123686422
You might argue that one has to provide a permission check flow anyway, but bear in mind that not all roms provide a UI for granting overlay permission. I don't know of any Android TV rom which provides such interface. Hence this is particularly annoying for TV apps that don't work without this permission.

Facebook API - Can't apply for the 'user_photos' permission

I have an Android app that uses the 'publish_actions' and 'user_photos' permissions to create photo albums on Facebook. I have already applied and been approved for 'publish_actions'. However, it will not let me apply for the 'user_photos' permission, because it says my app has not used this permission in the last thirty days.
My app does in fact use this permission. I have successfully published albums repeatedly from developer accounts and test user accounts. This only works if I use the 'user_photos' permission. If I try to create an album when I haven't requested 'user_photos', it doesn't work
Yet it still says I'm not using this permission. And I didn't have this problem with the 'publish_actions' permission; it was able to recognize that I was using it.
What do I need to do to make this permission available for applying? It almost seems like creating an album "requires" the permission, but does not "use" it.
I've heard some suggest that you need to be using the app owner's account, but again, this was not necessary for 'publish_actions'.
I solved this problem by changing the functionality of my app. Now my app reads in a user's albums, and appends photos to the album if it already exists. Doing so results in Facebook recognizing the use of the permission, which allows me to apply for it.
Overall, this still seems like a bug on Facebook's end.
You don't need the user_photos permission to publish photos, only publish_actions. You do need user_photos to be able to read (and get) the photos that a user has uploaded.
You, as an admin on the app, is allowed to grant any permissions you want to your app (since you'd need to be able to do that for development). Users who are not in an admin/dev/test role in your app will not be able to use any features that require additional permissions until your app is approved.

FB Android: How to ask a publish permission during installation?

I'm trying to convert my app to use the new Facebook Android SDK 3.0. I want to be able to check in places with my app. I've switched my old log in method to the native-login button supplied with the SDK. As far as I understand I can't ask for publishing permission during the installation process without asking for a basic permission first. And I can't set both publish and read permissions to the login button, because this will cause an exception. Then how should I do this? I don't want my user to deal with two dialog screens (every click matters). I want to ask for the permission once during the installation (first time use) process, and not when the publishing will occur (this damages the designed flow of my app).
Thank you in advance,
Dan
No you cannot ask for Publish Permission during app install (Only basic permission)
Publish permission dialog will be asked only once
Your right asking publish permission at install time will throw exception & break the login flow

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