Google exiles 600 apps from Play Store for 'disruptive advertising' amid push to clean up Android souk's image

On Thursday Google confirmed it has removed nearly 600 Android apps from the Google Play Store and banned them from its ad services for violating its policies on disruptive advertising and interstitials. "We define disruptive ads as ads that are displayed to users in unexpected ways, including impairing or interfering with the …

[iron]

> The Register asked Google whether the corresponding developer accounts have been deleted and, if so, how the company can be certain those developers will never be able to re-register under a different identity. We've not heard back.

This is Google we're talking about, they know everything about everyone and can connect all your various email addresses. And yes, they do ban developer accounts for life when they are found to be repeatedly breaching Play policies. Just look at r/androiddev for lots of examples.

[Anonymous Coward]

Merde show

The Apple app store ain't no saint, but the android app store is an absolute shitshow, despite the self praise that comes out of Google once a while with the AI this and ML that.

Anon, as I have to work with this anarchy

[Buzzword]

Disruptive ads

An example of a disruptive ad would be one that covers the entire mobile device screen, without an obvious way to get rid of it.

Like those ads on YouTube which don't have a "Skip Ad" button?

[Jess--]

Re: Disruptive ads

You see ads on youtube?

I haven't for a few years.

[GnuTzu]

Re: Disruptive ads

They come and they go. I tolerate the ones that have the "skip ads" button, for the illusion that I seem to get to vote down the bad ads. It's the 5-second ones I despise, and I just close the tab for those--as if that somehow compensates for being abused. If they get bad, I'll start using an ad blocker.

As for Amazon Streaming, they started showing ads for every viewing--and most of them are horrid. So, I quit Amazon entirely. When I quit Amazon Prime, there was that warning of how many hundreds of dollars I had saved on shipping. I just laughed; I wasn't going to be paying for any more shipping with Amazon. They should have worried about how many thousands of dollars in revenue they were losing--because of abusively persistent advertising. Hah!

[Alumoi]

Re: Disruptive ads

Me neither. It must be Adaway's fault.

[GnuTzu]

On A Related Topic...

It would be nice if ad services could be held accountable for what sellers put into their services. That is, do ad services perform reasonable screening of the content coming from a seller, and can the ad service be liable for any resulting damages? Until that situation gets fixed, there are organizations in which ad services are blocked at the proxy--as a potential source of malware.

[Mike Flex]

"An example of a disruptive ad would be one that covers the entire mobile device screen, without an obvious way to get rid of it."

Had one of those today. From the NHS.

[elvisimprsntr]

...removed nearly 600 Android apps from the Google Play Store and banned them from its ad services for violating its policies on disruptive advertising...

So Google only takes action if affects their bottom line in either excessive advertising payouts or re-direction.