Google is getting ready to put out some new changes in the Google Play Developer Program policy this week. On September 20th to be exact. And Rob Weber, who is the co-founder of NativeX, is weighing in on a potential $150 million in ad revenue at stake and the impact on this would have on the Android market. “In late August, Google announced that they would be changing their developer policies….It’s a bold, big move to catch up to iOS. The ad market has kind of been a grey area on Android.” Says Weber. He continues “some ad networks have become very spammy because Google hasn’t been very stringent to this point. It was pretty much anything goes. This is a jump to improve the user experience and an attempt to catch up to Apple.”
I do have to agree with him on this at some points. The ad space in apps on Android has gotten pretty bad. Some apps throw ads in your notification bar, while others just have them every where. It makes me wish that the only way to have ads were through Google’s own Adsense program. That way the ads wouldn’t be so spammy and would be pretty good as well.
Weber continues “In reading the policy, as of September 20, Android apps need to eliminate two key pieces of advertising functionally. One is ads in the notification bar, sort of notifications that you really don’t care about. Tens of thousands of apps on Android are currently using ads like this to generate Revenue. The Second is ad icons on the homescreen. When you install an app, it can ask you permissions to do this and take over your homescreen completely. Google is essentially killing this, in my estimation this amounts to over $150 million in annual ad revenue.”
While it seems surprising that Google is getting ready to kill that much ad revenue, since that’s where 90% of their revenue comes from. It makes sense. As users, those are the two ads we absolutely hate. Or perhaps that’s just me. Hopefully it’ll help developers and users, to compete with Apple’s iOS. Which Google has overtaken already in a few areas.