Is my app or its dependencies violating the Android Advertising Id policy?

Question

I\'ve just received this message from Google Play but I\'m not collecting the Advertising ID.

Reason for warning: Violation of Usage of Android Advert

Answer 1

Disable advertising id collection

According to the Firebase docs you can disable advertising id collection by setting:

<meta-data android:name="google_analytics_adid_collection_enabled" android:value="false" />

in your AndroidManifest.xml under the <Application> tag.

EDIT: It seems like people are having mixed success with this approach. Try adding configurations { all*.exclude group: 'com.google.firebase', module: 'firebase-core' all*.exclude group: 'com.google.firebase', module: 'firebase-iid' } to the Gradle app dependencies area as per comment below.

Answer 2

First, you have to create a privacy policy URL and then add this URL in GOOGLE PUBLISHER CONSOLE based on application. You can easily create privacy policy using this website.

Privacy Policies

If you have a server/host try to upload privacy policy page on your own server otherwise you can use this website for storing.

Mentioned: you have to add this policy page on your application. Create a menu as privacy police and show all your policy content on a dialog. Easiest way.

Answer 3

I got 3 apps suspended today. I had a busy day but managed to start working on the apps after lunch. I worked on and submitted 2 updates out of 3. Now I'm working on the third one.

A few minutes ago, one just got approved. Most of my apps already have privacy policies. The ones that got suspended did not. The suspect libraries in my case are Admob and Firebase Analytics.

What I did: 1. I created a privacy policy web-page and added a link in the Google Play Store listing. 2. I added the privacy policy as a string in the app and it pops up via a dialog the user can accept or decline one time.

After the updates, I held my breath for 2 hours and voila!

Answer 4

You are using crashlytics below 2.9.3. Apparently it's collecting and sending the google advertising id as a key in their header. That might be the or one of the issues. You can check if it's sending the advertising id through a proxy like Charles.

Edit *** It seems that version 2.9.3 and above are still getting the advertisingID from by calling AdvertisingIdClient.getAdvertisingIdInfo() from the com.google.android.gms.ads.identifier package. I checked it by setting a break point on the method. I am assuming it is somehow still being send to fabric. Which would mean updating to higher version will not solve it..

Answer 5

I am using Crashlytics and OneSignal. Relying on @RikvanVelzen tests with Crashlytics 2.9.3, it is not the reason for my getting the messasge from Google, but OneSignal.

Google requirement is "you must provide a valid privacy policy in both the designated field in the Play Console, and from within the app."

Therefore, I believe that I need to do only two things which are not too complicated:

1. Add a privacy policy link from Google Play's console, to a webpage with the info
2. Add privacy policy info in the app

The following seems to provide instructions on how to do it (just one of many): https://www.iubenda.com/blog/warning-google-play-developer-policy-violation-action-required-policy-issue/

Answer 6

I also recieved the same message and got some of my apps suspended today.

So i just deleted those three firebase dependencies:

compile 'com.google.firebase:firebase-core:10.0.1'
compile 'com.google.firebase:firebase-ads:10.0.1'
compile 'com.google.firebase:firebase-appindexing:10.0.1'

Then, i re-submitted the apps, and they was accepted after review :)