"Nothing has ever angered me more than The Google Play Team"

[Sandman]

Nothing has ever angered me more than The Google Play Team

2 weeks of dealing with Google as a developer

danfitdegree.hashnode.dev

 

[Filippo]

He is not the only one who has had such an experience.
I, for example, have experienced something like this many times and am experiencing it again.

 

[JordiCP]

Nothing has ever angered me more than The Google Play Team

2 weeks of dealing with Google as a developer

danfitdegree.hashnode.dev

With the due respect to the person who wrote it, the fact that he has been developing for several years doesn't necessarily imply that the fully understood the policy. Also, if one reads something 5 times and someone tells you that something is wrong, don't read it a 6th time, just give it to another person. The difference might lie in a slight detail.
Perhaps it was simply that the option to report and block UGC should be directly visibly available, not only when tapping it, but as a visible menu option, who knows?

(Possibly this is not what happened, and it was the reviewer's fault, but always worth considering the other option...)

Once I faced a similar issue of a team which continuously got their app rejected because of something they thought they were'n doing wrong. The policy was something related to permissions invocation. They had a carousel in which each permission was in-depth explained before asking the user to invoke the system dialog. The fact was that it was rejected several times because this explanation screen was a pop-up (in fact an app pop-up which covered most of the screen, not a system one, made with a panel) instead of being embedded in the app's main panel. From what I remember, there wasn't an exact sentence in the guidelines explicitly stating that it should be this way, but could be implied with no doubt from anoher secondary sentence. Now I don't remember all the details.

Communication with reviewers is not always 'as it should be', because (I guess) they must have some very strict guidelines of what to say and what not, perhaps of legal reasons (explicity stating how something should be done could lead to problems, instead of saying pass/not pass, and a pointer to the offended guideline)


This opinion has not been sponsorized by the Google nor Apple review team.

 

[Sandman]

That's damn fine input, @JordiCP.

 

[Filippo]

With the due respect to the person who wrote it, the fact that he has been developing for several years doesn't necessarily imply that the fully understood the policy. Also, if one reads something 5 times and someone tells you that something is wrong, don't read it a 6th time, just give it to another person. The difference might lie in a slight detail.
Perhaps it was simply that the option to report and block UGC should be directly visibly available, not only when tapping it, but as a visible menu option, who knows?

(Possibly this is not what happened, and it was the reviewer's fault, but always worth considering the other option...)

Once I faced a similar issue of a team which continuously got their app rejected because of something they thought they were'n doing wrong. The policy was something related to permissions invocation. They had a carousel in which each permission was in-depth explained before asking the user to invoke the system dialog. The fact was that it was rejected several times because this explanation screen was a pop-up (in fact an app pop-up which covered most of the screen, not a system one, made with a panel) instead of being embedded in the app's main panel. From what I remember, there wasn't an exact sentence in the guidelines explicitly stating that it should be this way, but could be implied with no doubt from anoher secondary sentence. Now I don't remember all the details.

Communication with reviewers is not always 'as it should be', because (I guess) they must have some very strict guidelines of what to say and what not, perhaps of legal reasons (explicity stating how something should be done could lead to problems, instead of saying pass/not pass, and a pointer to the offended guideline)


This opinion has not been sponsorized by the Google nor Apple review team.

I don't think you've ever had any problems with Google, or you wouldn't talk like that.
Who has ever read and understood all Google guidelines?

 

[AnandGupta]

I agree to both JordiCP and Filippo

JordiCP: for his explanation of need to read the rejection message with different context than is obvious. As the the message written by person in one part of world may not make sense in another part. Though Google being international brand should be proper here. But it is always the wish.

Filippo: for his message how a burnt finger hurts and one can feel the pain of others burn.

I have two apps now in GStore, and have two rejected. But now I have learnt the ropes. Mostly thanks to these type of messages in the Forum on what to do and what to expect from Google. They just want to make money and throw all responsibility on developers to bypass the cases filed against them all over the world. Typical business people.

 

[JordiCP]

I don't think you've ever had any problems with Google, or you wouldn't talk like that.

I've certainly had, with both Google and Apple.

But don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that they are always right and it is always the programmer's fault. Read my post again (all of it, as if it was a Google guideline)

What I state is that, if in a policy guideline there is some introductory text, some main bold indented text lines, and later another text, there is the possibility (and I have seen it) that people sometimes do only focus on the bold indented text, missing some points about the rest which they consider just ornamental.
Also, that the way they communicate and reply (for whatever reason) doesn't help much in these cases,
Also, that this is just a possibility and of course there can be cases where the reviewer is wrong.

I'm not trying to convince you, but don't make assumptions on what I have lived or not.

Who has ever read and understood all Google guidelines?

Not me. Only when an app is rejected

 

[Magma]

Google and Apple trying to follow EU, US and every gov rules... also they are having and their rules... if we can't follow... we are not the developers they want... is so simple...

Simple Logic...

ps: Not so simple... may be need to be a lawyer sometimes to understand the way of thinking... or nuclear physicist

 

[Filippo]

I have two apps now in GStore, and have two rejected. But now I have learnt the ropes. Mostly thanks to these type of messages in the Forum on what to do and what to expect from Google. They just want to make money and throw all responsibility on developers to bypass the cases filed against them all over the world. Typical business people.

I agree with you exactly.

 

[Filippo]

It's a bit better at Apple.
Most of the time, a person(not a robot) answered my questions and explained what I did wrong using screenshots. That way I was able to fix the error.
I wonder why Google doesn't do it that way?
If they already know where the problem is, then they can take some screenshots, it can't be that difficult, right?

 

[AnandGupta]

I received a routine email from Google Play,

Google Play Developer Program Policy Update

Additionally, we’ve added clarifications to one of our existing policies. Because this policy isn’t new or updated, our enforcement standards and practices for this policy remain the same.


    We’re clarifying our User Data policy to emphasize that
    developers are responsible for the end-to-end user data handling practices
    for data acquired within their apps.

See how Google is throwing the responsibility on us.

 

[FrostCodes]

Sorry about this experience to anyone who is also facing such from them!

To be honest, Google has done something similar to this to my business multiple times.

In the first instance, we were told they would not approve my app because I didn't provide a valid way to log in to check the protected app feature but I did provide 2 logins to them and somehow their staff could not just copy and paste any to try.
I was so angry and they refused to also reply so I had to increase my app version and resubmit the same thing and this time they approved it after waiting for weeks.

The second instance is I run a blog for educational articles/resources for students around Africa, the blog has been up for almost 2 years now and I write all my articles myself without plagiarism. I decided to apply for Adsense but every time, I keep getting rejected with a message I don't understand, and when I reply to ask what part of their policy I am not in line with because I have checked multiple times over the years of reapplying I get no reply or a generic reply that says the very same thing I got before from them.

In fact, at a point, I thought it was my blog theme that had an issue so I had it redesigned entirely with long hours and energy that could be spent on other parts of my business but I still got rejected! Funny enough, till today I have no idea no matter how many times I read their program policies what I am missing!


The third Instance is with their Chrome Web Store, I own an extension that has been on their store for almost a year and I tried to apply to be featured multiple times and I kept on getting this:

This made no sense to me as I followed all their rules and did all they required, So I replied and got this back almost every time:

Confused about what to do I read all their rules and policy top down again, but nothing I could think of and suddenly I woke up the next day or so to this:

I was so angry and I read their documentation but could not find what was wrong as truly my extension was opening a new tab to launch its UI/interface.
I started searching about this violation and guess what chrome has an API called chrome.tabs which has the function I need to open a new tab and required the permission "tabs" but guess what! To open a new tab with this API, you don't need that permission even though it is under the same API!

Almost anyone would miss this especially when they didn't mention it in their former documentation properly ( they seem to have updated the documentation in manifest 3 to say this but pretty sure a lot would still miss it the way they formatted it).

I removed it and was told my extension is back on the store, when I checked, I was featured and verified. My point is this thing was something that took me over 4 months to figure out and THEY COULD HAVE JUST TOLD ME IN ONE OR TWO LINES AND SAVED ME MONTHS OF RE-READING THEIR POLICY ALL THE TIME AND TWEAKING WRONG CODES!!


With Google, I have learned that just be ready to be frustrated with them.

By the way, I did not mention my experience with them for ADMOB! They kept my app on Limited ads for over 6 months for no reason at all!!
It was a dark period for my business as I was providing cheap to almost free educational material for African students who can't afford it and I needed to pay people who were assisting me in one way or another.

 

[DonManfred]

Probably related

Killed by Google

Killed by Google is the open source list of dead Google products, services, and devices. It serves as a tribute and memorial of beloved services and products killed by Google.

killedbygoogle.com

 

[Filippo]

I, for example, have experienced something like this many times and am experiencing it again.

So my last problem with the Google policy is now fixed.
My problem was that I had a privacy policy directly in my app and the link to it showed a general privacy policy.
Google wants each app to have its own privacy policy, not a general one for all their own apps.

Of course, Google would have written it to me right away, but you can't expect that much.