The Google Play Store (formerly known as the Android Market) isn’t some little app store anymore. There was a time when the selection of apps wasn’t so hot and you could have a better experience elsewhere. Thankfully, that’s changed considerably over the years and the Play Store now features over 600,000 applications from games, to productivity apps, and a heck of a lot more.
To keep things moving along smoothly and provide a better experience to users, Google has updated their developer policies which happen to be some pretty big updates. They are as follows…
- Restricting the use of names or icons confusingly similar to existing system apps in order to reduce user confusion
- Providing more detail on the kinds of dangerous products that are not allowed on Google Play. For example, apps that disclose personal information without authorization are not allowed.
- Giving more examples of practices that violate the spam policy.
- Adding a new section that addresses ad behavior in apps.
It’s very clear that Google wants to minimize the amount of shady and malicious apps in the Play Store. Unfortunately, an app can slip through the cracks as we’ve seen in the past. Also, regarding the first bullet point, they want it to be a lot easier to navigate and find the apps you’re looking for. Great changes and emails have already been sent out to developers to let them know about the new policy changes.