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Hi, I'm Teresa, Product Marketing Manager for Android and Google Play.
Welcome to Google Play Policy Bites, and thanks for joining us.
Today, we'll share a preview of our key privacy and security initiatives.
Then we'll talk about new policy requirements,
recent updates, clarifications, and timeline.
It's our top priority to keep Android and Google Play safe
for you to build successful businesses
and provide quality apps to billions of people around the world.
Today, we're sharing a preview of initiatives
that we're excited to partner with you on
to keep our platforms safe for everyone.
First, we're working with you to build
a more privacy-friendly approach to advertising.
Last year, we announced the Privacy Sandbox on Android,
an industry-wide initiative to raise the bar for user privacy
and ensure continued access to free content and services.
Now, we're rolling out the first beta to a small percentage of Android devices.
Both users and developers will be able to experience
and evaluate these new solutions in the real world.
Check it out and send us feedback. We'd love to hear from you.
Second, we're giving people more clarity and control over their data.
Through features like Google Play's Data Safety section,
we've helped you provide more transparency about
if and how your apps might collect, share, and protect user data.
This year, you'll see new features and policies
to give people more clarity and control.
Next, we're helping protect your apps from abuse and attacks.
We continue to enhance Play Integrity API and automated integrity protection
to help you better detect and prevent risks.
Developers who use these products have seen an average of over 50% reduction
in unauthorized access of their apps.
Stay tuned for more highly requested feature updates and expanded access.
We're also helping you navigate SDKs.
We've created ways for SDK providers to directly notify you
on Play Console and Android Studio.
About critical issues for specific SDK versions and how to fix crashes.
We've also launched Google Play SDK Index to give you insights and usage data
for over 100 of the most popular commercial SDKs on Google Play.
Soon, we'll share information about sensitive permissions an SDK may use
and whether a specific SDK version may violate Google Play policy.
We hope to help you avoid disruptions and exposure to risks.
Next, we'll continue to enhance protections for kids and families.
Over the past couple years, we've launched new features,
expanded our programs, and evolved our policies
to improve their app experience
and strengthen their privacy and security protections.
This year, you'll continue to see improved ways for Google Play
to help families discover great apps and more policy updates to protect kids' safety.
We're also boosting responsible data collection and use.
Developers and apps should only collect and use data
that's required for their apps to function and provide quality user experiences.
This year, you'll continue to see new permission and policy requirements.
And last, we're giving you a better policy experience.
We recently launched a Play Console feature
to give you more flexibility and control over the app review process.
We also opened up the Google Play Developer Community
so you can ask for advice and share best practices
with your fellow developer experts.
And this year, we'll provide more policy support and new features,
like a way in Play Console to plan ahead about declarations.
Read more about these initiatives in our blog at this link in QR code.
Now, let's talk about the new policy requirements
for user data and device and network abuse.
First, deleting an account should be as easy as creating one.
So we're introducing a new feature
and user data policy requirement for account deletion.
Last year, we launched Data Safety section in Google Play,
which gave you a way to build consumer trust
by explaining how your app might collect,
share, and protect users' personal data.
This year, we're enhancing this feature with new data controls,
which makes it easier for users to take control of their personal data
and a way for you to showcase how you treat their data responsibly.
Here's what's required.
First, all developers must complete new data control questions
in their app's Data Safety form.
You have the opportunity to show users the option to delete other data, too.
We recommend that you fill out your form now
so you can receive feedback before the deadline.
Second, if your app gives users a way to create an account from within your app,
then it must give users two ways to request for their account
and associated data to be deleted.
You must give users an in-app path and a web link resource
where they can ask for their account to be deleted.
You'll need to add this link to your Data Safety form.
We're asking for a web link because some users may have uninstalled your app,
so they'll need a different way to exercise this control.
Here's what the new feature might look like if you offer account deletion.
Users can spot the new data deletion badge
to quickly see if your app offers privacy control features.
Then users can tap into this screen and go to a new data controls area.
Here, users can ask for their account or for other data to be deleted.
Once they make their choice, they can tap a link to go to your web resource.
You may want to give users this additional option to delete
other data like activity history, images, and videos,
instead of only offering the option to delete their entire account.
And here's the timeline.
You have from today until the deadline to follow the requirements
and fill out the new questions in your Data Safety form.
If our team finds issues with your answers,
they may reject new app submissions and app updates,
but you can temporarily proceed by clearing your responses
to the data controls questions.
After the deadline, you will no longer be able to publish new apps or app updates
without filling all of the requirements.
If you need more time, you will be able to ask for an extension.
Users will start to see the new data deletion badge and data controls area.
The current data deletion badge will be removed,
and if you want the new badge,
you'll need to have your full Data Safety form completed and approved.
Remember, when you fulfill users' requests to delete their account,
you must also delete the user data associated with that account.
Find out more details and exceptions in our Help Center article.
Next, let's talk about new updates to our device and network abuse policy.
We're making changes to how foreground services are allowed to be used.
Foreground services lets an app complete tasks that users ask for it to do,
even after they navigate away from the app.
For example, a user might ask one app to play music
and then navigate to a second app,
so foreground service will enable the audio
from the first app to continue playing.
To enable your users to get the app experience
that's consistent with what you've designed,
we are introducing new foreground service types
and new policy requirements.
If you use a foreground service,
when your app targets Android 14 and above,
you must follow these requirements.
You need to declare a foreground service type in your app manifest,
covering all use cases.
This may mean multiple types per app.
If applicable, you'll also need to request
any additional foreground service permissions
that Android requires for that foreground service type.
Then you'll need to describe this usage in Play Console declaration
that will be available later this year.
As a reminder, apps are only allowed to use foreground services
for most of these types if they provide a feature
that's beneficial to the user and relevant to the app's core functionality.
Run a task that's initiated by and noticeable to the user.
Run for only as long as necessary to complete the task.
And run immediately, without system delay or interruption.
On the left, we have an example for casting media
and the permission you'll need to declare.
And on the right, we have an example for continuously playing audio
or a video in the background and the permission you'll declare for this.
To learn more, see our resources.
We want to enable developers to create apps
that deliver great user experiences
while being mindful of battery and system resource consumption.
To complement the foreground service permissions updates,
We're introducing a new job scheduler API
as an alternative to foreground service.
This new API should be easier to integrate
and set up for large data transfer use cases,
especially if your app faces constraints,
like users choosing to download over Wi-Fi only.
Apps are only allowed to use this API
for tasks that are initiated by the user
and transfers over the network.
Also, it should only run for as long as necessary
to complete the data transfer.
We hope these new tools give both you and your users a better experience.
Please review our developer documentation
for more information about how to integrate them in your apps.
Now, let's move on to policy updates on user ratings, reviews, and installs,
as well as clarifications on SDK requirements.
Next, we want users to trust the user ratings, reviews, and installs
they see about apps on Google Play
so they can reliably use this information to decide if an app is right for them.
So we're updating our policy to state that we don't allow apps
that has main functionality of incentivizing users to install other apps
or incentivizes users to rate or review apps.
Here are some common violations that we've seen.
Both of these behaviors are prohibited.
The example on the left shows a notification
that offers users a discount in exchange for a high rating.
The example on the right shows a reply with a coupon offer
to a highly rated review that encourages users to promote the RescueRover app.
Now, let's talk about SDK requirements.
Over the past years, we've emphasized that all code in your app
needs to follow our policies, including third-party SDKs and libraries.
Today, we're publishing this clarification,
which collects and centralizes some of our existing SDK requirements
to make it easier for you to find this information all in one place.
We've also added examples of common SDK-related violations
to help you decide how to safely integrate SDKs into your apps.
You can check out our new Help Center article
and Play Academy's course on SDK best practices.
And you can always use Google Play SDK Index
to better decide whether an SDK is right for your business and your users.
Let's quickly touch on an updated deadline for target API-level requirements.
To help simplify deadlines and avoid confusion,
we're unifying the deadline to August 31st every year for all apps.
This means that new apps, existing apps, and app updates
all need to target recent target API levels
in order to be submitted for review
and stay distributed to all users on Google Play.
If you need more time to update your app,
you will be able to request an extension to November 1st, 2023.
Please see more details at our Help Center article.
Finally, here are some upcoming policy deadlines.
For policies that may take you more time,
we've been mindful to give longer grace periods.
For a full list of recent policy updates,
please visit goo.gle/playupdates
We encourage you to review these updates carefully
in case any of them impact your apps.
I hope this helped you better understand our policies.
For free courses on Google Play Policy,
visit our Google Play Academy at g.co/playacademy/policy.
Thank you for continuing to partner with us
to make Google Play a safe and trustworthy platform for everyone.
Until next time, stay safe and healthy out there.