The hidden danger when developing for Android(medium.com) |
The hidden danger when developing for Android(medium.com) |
https://play.google.com/about/developer-content-policy.html
"Apps must not have names or icons that appear confusingly similar to existing products, or to apps supplied with the device (such as Camera, Gallery or Messaging)." Seems pretty strait-forward, correct? You passed the initial screening because the developer has to go through extra steps to release to the public rather than just alpha/beta users. You skipped these steps on several apps and Google banned you, which they should have. They should also have a review process though in-case the user was just dumb, which happens a lot, I've been dumb thousands of times, it's just human nature.
Submitting an app to an App Store is not a simple process. I'm not sure why the author thought he could release 10 questionable apps to the public through a companies App Store without either using the Play stores Alpha/Beta features or ensuring that the app was polished and not misleading to the user.
What if anyone could release a malicious/misleading/fraudulent app to the public Play store with any companies icons and say, "We are just testing.", even with that phrase, the user doesn't know that you are not the company you are impersonating. Now imagine a new developer releasing 10 apps that had the same icons and functionality as other apps, that simply can't be allowed.
The author writes that he thought 30 malicious or misleading apps could be submitted before Google would take the extreme action of permanently banning his account, then he got mad when they banned him after only PUBLICLY RELEASING 3 apps that had likely been flagged and manually reviewed.
TL,DR: Either use the alpha/beta features in Google Play Developers area or make 100% sure that your app meets ALL of the guidelines and policies that they require. With over a million apps in the Google play store Google has to follow strict rules or it puts the user at risk, if they didn't then there would be over a million more junk/malicious/misleading apps on the App Stores, would that really be a good thing?
I don't know about android development, but when it comes to adsense, I haven't found a way to do that. I even know more than one person who works at google. They told me it's just an algorithm, not a person who decides.
Hyperbole much?