Google gets serious about its Play Store policies

The famous Mountain View company wants to have the most reliable application store in the world, according to what they comment, and they want it to be more child-friendly, so many of them are blocked or have restrictions in certain countries. So these are the new policies of the Play Store.

New Play Store policies

Sexual content

Google has banned any application that has some kind of relationship with explicit sexual content, such as pornography. These are the frequent infractions they have posted.

• Representations of sexual activities or sexually suggestive postures.
• Promotional images of erotic toys.
• Content that depicts, describes, or encourages bestiality.
• Applications that promote services related to prostitution or that offer sexual favors in exchange for some type of gratification.

Hate speech

As is normal, Google does not want hate speech in the applications available in its store. They have stated the following:

We do not accept applications that promote violence or incite hatred towards people or groups based on race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, sex, age, nationality, military veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or other characteristics associated with the systemic discrimination or marginalization.

Something totally normal and understandable.

Bullying

Referring a bit to the previous one, harassment (or cyberbullying) of any person or group of people is prohibited, and although this policy is not new, we add it in relation to the previous one. Frequent infractions:

• Content that harasses victims of religious or international conflicts.
• Content that incites the exploitation of other people, such as extortion, blackmail, etc.
• Content posted with the aim of publicly humiliating someone.
• Content in which victims of tragic events or their family or friends are harassed.

Gambling games, loot boxes

This is where more rules have been applied, we recommend that you take a look at the rules if you intend to publish an app of this type. But in short, they cannot be advertised in depending on which apps (like apps for children, for example).

Before there were prohibitions, they were on prizes of “cash or other value”, while now they are of “cash or other value in the real world”, so it is suggested that the lootboxes (or loot boxes) will be allowed, unlike what many countries are currently banning.

This we assume that it will be regulated by the law of each country, so, again we repeat, if you are a developer and want to publish an app, find out well in advance.

What do you think of all this?