Violating the Device and Network Abuse policy

Question

One of my android apps is using YouTube API to download videos. And this has been removed from play store due to below issue.

"This app has been removed from Google Play for violating the Device and Network Abuse policy. Before submitting your app for another review, read through the policy and modify your app to make sure it doesn't download, monetize, or access YouTube videos in a way that violates the YouTube Terms of Service."

I've gone through the policies but I could not understand the above error. Can someone guide me what could be the exact issue?

And, this error may cause any issues to my play store account termination?

Answer 1

I had the same issue for my app. I was displaying Banner Ads in the webview where Youtube video is being played. According to Google Play program policy, we are not allowed to show Banner ads in screen where we are accessing Youtube videos.

So,

1. Try to remove banner ads if your app is showing ads in youtube video screen

2. Make sure that you are to pause Video when your app is in background .This might be you probably forgot to pause the video when your app is in background. Use following code :-

   @Override

   public void onPause(){
     super.onPause();
     mWebView.onPause();
   }
   

3. the important thing to add in manifest file:

   <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE"/>
   

4. After trying all this if you are still having the same issue.You can contact Google by reply back to the same email from which you got this rejection email "Asking about the elaborated and specific reason for the rejection of the app".

Hope this might Help!!

Answer 2

Thank you all for your view and explanation. Unfortunately it had nothing to do with ads. We already passed that station 3 years ago. This time it was different. After a couple of mails between us and Google support, we finally found out the reason: We were basically linking to videos with the content not belonging to the rightful copyright owners. In other words. The videos on youtube are not legal. The content of the video is not owned by the uploader. The list of videos linked in our app was programmatically generated based on keywords. Not manually handpicked. You would say that this is the responsibility of Google and their filtering system, but apparently, it is not. As a result we removed the entire Youtube functionality from the app. Not very nice, but we could not find another solution. Still thinking about whether there is a solution or not.

Answer 3

Here is the solution. Try this method i hope your problem will be solved.

Make sure after close your device screen your app shouldn't be play any video or anything because it's disrupt the user’s device.

According to google:

We don’t allow apps that interfere with, disrupt, damage, or access in an unauthorized manner the user’s device

First add this two method in your java MainActivity

@Override
    protected void onPause() {
        super.onPause();
        myWebView.onPause();//if it's not webview in your case then add the method name you want pause when user device is pause
    }


    @Override
    protected void onResume() {
        super.onResume();
        myWebView.onResume();//same as here if it's not webview then add the method name you want to resume when user resume their device
    }

Secondly add this two permission in android Manifest File

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE" />