Clarifying Recent App Decisions on Play

Google Play was designed to provide a safe and secure experience for our consumers while also giving developers the platform and tools they need to build sustainable businesses. Our global policies were designed with that goal in mind.

A number of recent app removals received particular attention in India and we wanted to clarify our actions.

Earlier this week, we removed a video app for a number of technical policy violations. We have an established process of working with developers to help them fix issues and resubmit their apps.  We’ve given this developer some guidance and once they’ve addressed the issue the app can go back up on Play*.

We also recently suspended a number of apps for violating the policy that we don't allow an app that “encourages or incentivizes users into removing or disabling third-party apps or modifying device settings or features unless it is part of a verifiable security service”. This is a longstanding rule designed to ensure a healthy, competitive environment where developers can succeed based upon design and innovation. When apps are allowed to specifically target other apps, it can lead to behavior that we believe is not in the best interest of our community of developers and consumers. We’ve enforced this policy against other apps in many countries consistently in the past - just as we did here.

We hope this helps clarify the rationale behind these recent actions. We thank our developers for all the amazing work they do and our consumers for their continued support in helping to create a safe and secure mobile app ecosystem.

Posted by Sameer Samat, Vice President, Android and Google Play

*The app is back up on the Play Store.