Publish to the Google Play Store

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Google Play policies are designed to deliver your apps and games safely to billions of people worldwide. Once you have a Google Play developer account whenever there is a new policy introduced or any change in existing policy, you are notified by email at the contact email address provided by you. With the new Google Play Console, you get all these updates in the inbox of your Play Console as well. So if you are a Google Play developer and have one or more apps published on Google Play make sure you are checking this inbox regularly. To deep dive into Google Play policies, you can take this Google Play policy course by Google Play Academy. Visit Developer Policy Center to explore policies and related resources. You can click, Recent updates to know about the recent policy changes. You can also subscribe to Android Developers YouTube channel and keep a watch on PolicyBytes videos published regularly. In this episode, you will see some key policy updates in 2021. Remember, these are not the exhaustive list and you can refer to the links in the resources for the same. To help developers be more profitable, Google announced reduction in service fee for different categories for developers. Starting first July, 2021. Service fee for each developer will be 15% for the first 1 million US dollars of earnings you make each year when you sell digital goods or services. If you haven't enrolled, you can enroll using the link provided here. This link is also shared in the resources. 15% rate is effective from the day you enroll. In October, 2021, Google announced that to support specific needs of developers offering subscriptions, starting first, January, 2022, Google is decreasing service fees on subscriptions to 15%. In October, 2021, Google also announced that it is making changes to Play Media Experience Program, where eBooks and on-demand music streaming services will now be eligible for service fee as low as 10%. You have seen data safety section in creating store listing episode. These are the timelines to recap and summarize. From October, 2020, start filling out your Data Safety Form and include a privacy policy. In fact, 2022, users will see this feature in Google Play Store. April, 2022, is the deadline to get the form and privacy policy approved. These are key policy enforcements, for example, starting November, 2021, all apps must target at least Android 11 for any app updates. Updates to existing apps using Pay Billing must use billing library version three or four. Time now to see, how to handle a policy violation on Google Play. When you submit your app for review there are four types of review outcomes when your app isn't approved, rejection, removal, suspension and termination. Rejection can happen when you submit a new app or update. A common reason for rejection is like store listing contains metadata spam like unrelated or repeating keywords. Check your email or Play Console to learn more about policy violation, make appropriate adjustment and resubmit your APK or app bundle. If previously published version of your app is live in Google Play, that version will remain live. In some cases after your app is live, it may be removed from Google Play entirely, including any previous versions. Examples of removal are like, if the reviewers find that the content in the app is not consistent with the answers to the content writing questionnaire filled by you. For more serious violations, Google Play may suspend all versions of your app. Like if a malware is found, app is suspended. In this case, you will lose all installs and ratings and you can no longer use the same APK or app bundle. That means, you cannot use the same package name to upload. You are responsible for the content behavior and SDK or libraries you incorporate in your app. Ensure that you use trusted libraries. Suspension counts as strikes against the good standing of Google Play developer account. Multiple or serious violation may result in termination of your account. If you disagree with Google reviewer's decision, you can submit an appeal via the link in the violation email. Another member from Google Play team will take a second look. Make sure your contact information is up to date in Google Play Console to get all the updates. So you've seen four types of rejections and some details about each. To learn more about Google Play policies, check out the links in the resources. With this, you come to the end of the course. Hope you enjoyed it. For any question, comments or feedback, please join the forum discussion.