Google Play App Rejection: Violation of Inappropriate Ads Policy — Code Saying

Showing ads in the app is the best way for generating revenue. With changes in Google Policies, Google Play has started rejecting apps due to violation of inappropriate ads policy. Violation of the inappropriate ads policy will not reject your previously published app, it will just reject the current update.

The ads shown within your app must be appropriate for the intended audience of your app, even if the content by itself is otherwise compliant with Google policies. For example, ads that show mature content or services cannot be served in apps that have a content rating for younger audiences. However, if you submitted an update, the previous version of your app is still available on Google Play.

Child Directed Setting

The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) applies to websites, apps, and services directed to children under the age of 13. It also applies to general audience apps, websites, or services with users known to be under the age of 13. For purposes of the COPPA, there is a setting called “tag for child-directed treatment “. You understand that abuse of this setting may result in termination of your Google account.

Apps in the Designed For Families Program as Primarily child-directed apps and users signed into Google accounts managed with Family Link automatically have all content treated as child-directed for all ad requests.

Setting tag for child-directed treatment fo Admob in Unity

Use the following code snippet to request an ad.

// Returns an ad request with custom ad targeting. private AdRequest CreateAdRequest() { return new AdRequest.Builder() .AddKeyword("game") .TagForChildDirectedTreatment(true) .AddExtra("color_bg", "9B30FF") .Build(); }

Setting the TagForChildDirectedTreatment to true indicates that you want your content treated as child-directed for purposes of COPPA.

Abmob Panel Control

The above code snippet is not enough for controlling or restricting the ads for admob. Make sure that you block sensitive categories in the admob control panel.

1. Sign in to your AdMob account at https://apps.admob.com.
2. Click Apps in the sidebar.
3. Select the name of your app.
4. Click Blocking controlsunder Apps in the sidebar.
5. In particular, you’ll want to look at the “Sensitive Categories”. Block all the categories that might disrupt the ads appropriateness on the basis of your content policy.

Google Play’s Designed For Families Policy

Apps designed specifically for children must participate in the Designed for Families program. However, if your app targets children as only one of its audiences, participating in the Designed for Families program is still a great way to surface your app to the right users. If you decide not to participate in the program, you still must comply with the Google Play Families Policy requirements.

If your app is targeted towards everyone, including children and families, you’ll need to include code snippet above that calls the tagForChildDirectedTreatment() method for ad requests served to children.

All apps classified as Designed for Families, and all ad requests with tagForChildDirectedTreatment(true), must use a Google Play certified ad network. Starting October 15, 2019, AdMob will block ad serving from non-certified ad sources and custom events.

No more rejections. Happy publishing!

Originally published at http://codesaying.com on October 30, 2019.