MediaMonkey for Android Removed from Google Play

[rusty]

Hi,

Recently, the MediaMonkey Ringtone Maker was removed by Google from the app store and we received warnings that MediaMonkey and MediaMonkey Beta would be similarly removed if certain policy violations weren't resolved within 7 days. Furthermore, we were advised that our developer account might be cancelled in response to these violations. To avoid this possibility, we've removed all MediaMonkey products from the store on a (?hopefully) temporary basis. I'm writing this to better explain the situation in the hope that someone might be able to help us resolve this, that it'll help some other Android developer, or that someone at Google will read this and help rectify the situation for MediaMonkey and for Android devs in general.

Let me preface this by saying that I am a huge Android fan. I was an iPhone user for the first 2 iterations, but by the time Android 2.3 was out I'd switched to an Xperia Pro and never looked back. Android gave me the freedom to use my phone as I wanted--something I never felt I had with the iPhone, even after jailbreaking it. That openness is part of what inspired us to take a crack at building MediaMonkey for Android (MMA) rather than MediaMonkey for iOS. It was the right decision, though recent events have me wondering...

On Dec. 9, 2014, I modified the 'MediaMonkey Ringtone Maker' (a free addon that we'd packaged separately from MMA), changing the product icon that appears in the app Store. Upon publishing the change, we received an email from Google Play Support:

7-day Notification of Google Play Developer Terms Violation
This is a notification that your application, MediaMonkey Ringtone Maker, with package ID com.ventismedia.android.mediamonkeybeta.addon.contacts.ringtone, is currently in violation of our developer terms.

REASON FOR WARNING: Potential violation of the Impersonation or Deceptive behavior and/or intellectual property provisions of the Content Policy.

Your app and/or elements of its listing on Google Play, including title, description, icon(s), or promotional screenshots, have been flagged for potential unauthorized usage of protected works belonging to a third party. Protected work could typically include product names, brands, images, logos, music, and similar works. This is a policy warning of impending removal.

To achieve compliance, you must perform one of the following actions within 7 days, or your app will be permanently disabled:

1) Use our appeals form to provide verifiable and accepted proof that you have rights or license to utilize this content,
2) Make modifications to your app and/or its listing to bring it into compliance. To do so, remove any content that may be a protected work in your app and/or app listing.
3) Unpublish the listing from further availability on Google Play.

....

We elected to file an appeal, as it seemed that this was mistakenly generated by some sort of bot. I wrote (perhaps a bit naively):

I have no idea why this was flagged for a copyright violation. Ventis Media are the makers of MediaMonkey, one of the leading media management applications. The ringtone maker is a tiny addon application to MediaMonkey for Android that is packaged separately to minimize permissions required for MediaMonkey.

The only change that was made was to change the 'Hi-res icon' that appears in the App store because the previous iteration had insufficient contrast. The change involved overlaying the Phone Ring Volume icon (ic_action_ring_volume.png) from the Action Bar Icon Pack at https://developer.android.com/design/do ... index.html on the MediaMonkey icon. According to Google's terms of use for these icons: "You may use these materials without restriction to facilitate your app design and implementation."

If there is some other problem, please clarify.

Thank you.

Google's response:

Thank you for your reply. We appreciate the opportunity to review your appeal pertaining to the warning of your application from Google Play.

After a regular review, your app has been administratively warned pending verification that you are authorized to publish on behalf of the original content or brand owner.

We were not able to validate your account's relationship to the original content or brand owner. In order for us to process your appeal, please provide documentation that the application is authorized in your reply to this notification. Please be advised we will not be able to respond to your application without the above documentation.

We appreciate your assistance and look forward to your reply.

At this point, I'm pulling my hair out--what do they want? Originally, the notification seemed to be IP-related, considering that it arose after I made the change to an icon. But now, they're asking for 'documentation that the application is authorized'. In any case I responded with the following document.

12/10/2014 Google answered:

We have reviewed your appeal. This decision is final and we will not be responding to any additional emails regarding this warning.

We are unable to comment further on the specific policy basis for this warning or provide guidance on bringing future versions of your app into policy compliance. Instead, please reference the warning in the initial notification email from Google Play.

But what does that initial warning mean (Potential violation of the Impersonation or Deceptive behavior and/or intellectual property provisions of the Content Policy)? Is the problem with code? with icons? with the text? Is it with Ventis owning rights to MediaMonkey? Whether I work for Ventis? I had no idea, so at that point I just reverted the change that precipitated the warning to begin with and notified them of that. I also asked them to check out the news announcement as evidence that I work for Ventis.

No response. But, a week later, the MediaMonkey Ringtone Maker was still up, so I presumed that the problem was the icon and that reverting it solved the problem.

If only it were that simple.

Jan. 28, 2015: I update 'MediaMonkey for Android Beta' and soon after receive:

7-day Notification of Google Play Developer Terms Violation:
This is a notification that your application, MediaMonkey Beta, with package ID com.ventismedia.android.mediamonkeybeta, is currently in violation of our developer terms.

REASON FOR WARNING: Potential violation of the Impersonation or Deceptive behavior and/or intellectual property provisions of the Content Policy.

Your app and/or elements of its listing on Google Play, including title, description, icon(s), or promotional screenshots, have been flagged for potential unauthorized usage of protected works belonging to a third party. Protected work could typically include product names, brands, images, logos, music, and similar works. This is a policy warning of impending removal.
.....

Now I'm really worried. This is no longer just a free addon. This is MediaMonkey. This is my life, my livelihood. I tried to get input from Google, to no avail. The team reviewed the app and the description top to bottom, and decided on the following changes:
1. Added the License to the ‘About’ dialog so that it is accessible at any time (not just at startup)
2. Updated the License with attribution for several newly added components + the Android SDK
• Android SDK
• Android icon packs - Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic License
• https://github.com/bauerca/drag-sort-listview - Apache license 2.0
• https://github.com/cesards/ForegroundViews - Apache license 2.0
• Amazon Fire SDK - Program Materials License Agreement
3. Corrected license for http://4thline.org/projects/cling/ to indicate use of CDDL (not LGPL)
4. Removed the Amazon SDK from build of MediaMonkey for Android that appears in the Google Play store in case it violates section 3.4 of the terms of use:
“3.4 You agree that you will not take any actions that may cause or result in the fragmentation of Android, including but not limited to distributing, participating in the creation of, or promoting in any way a software development kit derived from the SDK.”
5. Replaced the UPnP icon (which had previously contained a copyrighted logo).
6. Modified the store description
• Made it unambiguously clear that it is the beta version of MediaMonkey and that it is a Trial limited to 15 days.
• Blurred copyrighted Album Art images and songs in case this was the root of the potential violation.

Feb. 3 We made those changes to MediaMonkey for Android Beta, and filed an appeal with the following documention.

To which Google responded:

Thanks for getting in contact with Google Play. Your appeal has been submitted successfully and will be reviewed by a specialist. The ticket number for your appeal is referenced in the subject of this message, and you should receive a response from us within 72 hours.

Please refrain from sending duplicate appeals as this will not reduce response time.

2/5/2015 In the meantime, I'm looking into other possible reasons for the warnings, and find that some devs are experiencing violation notices because they mention Android in relation to violation of Branding Guidelines. When I find that out, I proceed to remove all mentions of Android and Google Play from the MediaMonkey Beta product description (e.g. Syncs between Android and Windows devices --changed to---> Syncs between your device and your PC). To play it safe, I make those changes to 'MediaMonkey' and 'MediaMonkey Ringtone Maker' as well.

Big mistake. Soon after making those changes to eliminate any potential branding violations, I received a notice that MediaMonkey Ringone Maker is suspended (no reason stated) and a second one that MediaMonkey is in violation of Intellectual Property provisions of the policy:

This is a notification that your application, MediaMonkey Ringtone Maker, with package ID com.ventismedia.android.mediamonkeybeta.addon.contacts.ringtone, has been removed from the Google Play Store.

REASON FOR SUSPENSION: Violation of the intellectual property and impersonation or deceptive behavior provisions of the Content Policy. Please refer to the IP infringement and impersonation policy help article for more information.

Your app and/or elements of its listing on Google Play, including title, description, logo(s), or promotional screenshots must not include unauthorized usage of protected works belonging to a third party.
Your app icon and promotional screenshots must not contain images that appear confusingly similar to existing products.

This particular app has been disabled as a policy strike. If your developer account is still in good standing, you may revise and upload a policy compliant version of this application as a new package name.

This notification also serves as notice for other apps in your catalog. You can avoid further app suspensions by immediately ensuring that no other apps in your catalog are in violation of (but not limited to) the above policy. Please also ensure your apps’ compliance with the Developer Distribution Agreement and Content Policy.

All violations are tracked. Serious or repeated violations of any nature will result in the termination of your developer account, and investigation and possible termination of related Google accounts. If your account is terminated, payments will cease and Google may recover the proceeds of any past sales and the cost of any associated fees (such as chargebacks and payment transaction fees) from you.

If you feel we have made this determination in error, you can visit the Google Play Help Center article for additional information regarding this suspension.

This is a notification that your application, MediaMonkey, with package ID com.ventismedia.android.mediamonkey, is currently in violation of our developer terms.

REASON FOR WARNING: Potential violation of the Impersonation or Deceptive behavior and/or intellectual property provisions of the Content Policy.

Your app and/or elements of its listing on Google Play, including title, description, icon(s), or promotional screenshots, have been flagged for potential unauthorized usage of protected works belonging to a third party. Protected work could typically include product names, brands, images, logos, music, and similar works. This is a policy warning of impending removal.

To achieve compliance, you must perform one of the following actions within 7 days, or your app will be permanently disabled:

Use our appeals form to provide verifiable and accepted proof that you have rights or license to utilize this content,
Make modifications to your app and/or its listing to bring it into compliance. To do so, remove any content that may be a protected work in your app and/or app listing.
Unpublish the listing from further availability on Google Play.

For further guidance, please refer to this article for more information.

If you have additional apps in your catalog, please also review and update them to reach compliance. Note that any remaining applications found to be in violation will be removed from the Google Play Store.

The Google Play Team

So now, MediaMonkey Ringtone Maker is suspended for no clear reason, MediaMonkey for Android Beta is under a 7-day Notification warning of of impending removal that is under appeal, and MediaMonkey for Android is under a 7-day Notification warning of impending removal that I'm not sure how to resolve nor whether an appeal makes any sense. MediaMonkey Pro hasn't received any warning, but is subject to "This notification also serves as notice for other apps in your catalog."

And considering that "repeated violations of any nature will result in the termination of your developer account" and that 1 app has been suspended and 2 of 3 other apps are currently suspected of a violation, it seems that the only safe option is to unpublish everything until I find someone at Google who's willing to help me understand what the problem is.

The only other possible issues I can think of are:
- the package names all include 'android' within the name (e.g. com.ventismedia.android.mediamonkey ). But that seems unlikely considering that the app Titles don't include 'Android', that Google didn't reject those package names on creation, and that the Ringtone Maker was not suspended in December after I'd reverted the icon but didn't make a change to the package name.
- the account owner is not a director of the company (but has been authorized by a director to enter this relationship). Possible, but doubtful.
Could these be the problems? Who knows... someone at Google does. But so far they're unwilling to share the secret. I'll wait until the MediaMonkey Beta appeal has been completed and then decide how to move forward.

Let me know if you have any ideas. I'm at wits end.

Thanks.

-Rusty

UPDATES:
2/9/2015 Still no response re. our appeal for MediaMonkey Beta, filed on Feb. 3.

2/9/2015 In case the problem is related to the fact that 'android' appears within the package name, I've submitted the following to the google branding team:

Hi,

We've been distributing 4 products in Google Play: MediaMonkey, MediaMonkey beta, MediaMonkey Pro, MediaMonkey Ringtone Maker. All of them have package names containing 'android. e.g.
com.ventismedia.android.mediamonkey, com.ventismedia.android.mediamonkeybeta, com.ventismedia.android.mediamonkeypro, etc.
These names were chosen to internally distinguish MediaMonkey for Android vs Windows, OSX, etc.

Recently, we received warnings regarding IP Violations in 3 of the 4 products, and one of those products was suspended. Based on feedback from other developers (the Google Play Store doesn' t give reasons for suspensions), the problem because our screencaps contained images from 3rd-party Albums.

Can you confirm that it's ok that 'android' appears in the package name? We hope it's ok, because otherwise we'd have to rename the packages and lose stats / ratings, and most importantly, paid users of MediaMonkey Pro would lose their purchases on hardware upgrades.

Thx.
RS.

They responded indicating that we should hear back within a week.

2/9/2015: We've filed the following appeal re. suspension of the MediaMonkey Ringtone Maker. If this fails, we'll have to launch a new version of the product.

We received a violation warning on 12/9/2014 following an icon update and responded with an appeal on the same day. Our appeal was rejected, most likely because it assumed that the violation was related to the icon update (which we now believe to not be the case).

Since we believed that the problem was related to the icon update, we then reverted it, and since we hadn't heard back from Google Play, assumed that the problem was solved.

On 1/28/2015 we received IP violation warnings for MediaMonkey and MediaMonkey Beta, which made us realize that the earlier warning was likely due to another issue (possibly the use of 'android' within the description or use of 3rd party album art in screen caps). As such, we started rectifying of our product descriptions, removing 'android' and blurring artwork. Apparently, this change triggered a review, and suspension of our app (MediaMonkey Ringtone Maker).

We are a reputable developer. Please allow us to make the remaining changes to bring our description into compliance.

2/9/2015: Google responded to the appeal of the suspension of the Ringtone maker, with a very clear and helpful response:

Hi Russell,

Thank you for your reply. We appreciate the opportunity to review your appeal pertaining to the removal of your application from Google Play.

Your promotional screenshots uses one or more protected images belonging to a third party. If you are authorized to utilize this content, please attach verifiable and accepted proof of permission in your reply.

If you are not authorized to utilize this content, please respond to commit your intent to remove all unauthorized protected images from your app. Please note that this removal requirement will apply to all areas of your app and is not limited to the area(s) listed above.
Regards,
The Google Play Team

Hi,

Thank you so much for getting back to me with a clear and meaningful response.

Ventis is not authorized to use the Album Art that is displayed in the product description. We'd originally believed that the images were incidental to the app and qualified as fair use, and that the Violation notification was related to other issues. Upon realizing otherwise, we had begun the process of obfuscating the album art images for some of our products, but we will instead remove them entirely and replace them with landscape photographs taken by a member of the Ventis Media team. I'll do this for the entire MediaMonkey family of apps:
com.ventismedia.android.mediamonkeybeta.addon.contacts.ringtone
com.ventismedia.android.mediamonkey
com.ventismedia.android.mediamonkeybeta
com.ventismedia.android.mediamonkeypro

I'll leave all of our apps in the 'unpublished' state until we've made all of those changes.

Thank you.

Regards,
Russell

Hi Russell,

We appreciate the opportunity to review your appeal. Upon further review, we've accepted your appeal and have conditionally reinstated your app.

You will need to log in to your Google Play Developer Console within seven days to submit a compliant update. To prevent future removal, be sure to thoroughly review your update for compliance with Google Play Intellectual property guidelines. You can find more information in the initial enforcement notification from Google Play.

That was really quite helpful (though it would have been useful to have received an email of this nature from the very beginning to have prevented the entire misunderstanding).

2/10/2015: We received a response from Google re. our request for clarification of branding guidelines as to whether 'android' in a package name is ok.:

Hello Russell,

Thank you for contacting the Google Play Partner Brand Marketing team.

Make sure you are following all guidelines on the Android Developer Brand Guidelines page for the appropriate use of Android in text.

Use the Manage Policy Violations section on the Developer Help site to answer your questions and file an appeal if necessary.

Thank you,
Google Play Partner Brand team

Unfortunately, this isn't really helpful since the guidelines are vague to begin with.

2/11/2015: We've republished MediaMonkey, MediaMonkey Pro, MediaMonkey Beta, and MediaMonkey Ringtone Maker, having updated the screencaps (no images of 3rd party album art), updated widget samples included with MediaMonkey and MediaMonkey Beta (no images of 3rd party album art), updated UPnP icons, updated licenses, removed mention of 'Android' from the UI. Hopefully this story is over.

[rusty]

Some other possible issues brought up by users or come to mind after a couple hours of sleep:
- Does google consider that the logo is too similar to:
Barrel of Monkeys: http://www.toysrus.com/graphics/tru_pro ... 7044dt.jpg
12 Monkeys movie: http://geeknation.com/wp-content/upload ... onkeys.jpg
It's possible, but unlikely considering that this has been MediaMonkey's logo for close to 10 years without any legal issues to-date.

- Is the problem that the icon/graphics of 'MediaMonkey' are too similar to 'MediaMonkey Beta' and 'MediaMonkey Ringtone maker'? The Google Play policy guidelines indicate "Don't use another app's branding— Don’t use another product, person, or company name in your app title or description if you have not been given express permission to do so, as this may give the impression that your app is officially sponsored when it is not." It's unlikely that this is the case (unless Google's enforcer bot is not that intelligent) since MediaMonkey is a family of products whose intellectual property is all owned by Ventis.

- Is the problem simply that Google views MediaMonkey as a competitor to native OS functionality?
The Impersonation or Deceptive Behaviour section of the Google Play Developer Program Policies (https://play.google.com/about/developer ... wlanguages) indicates: "Products or the ads they contain also must not mimic functionality or warnings from the operating system or other apps."
This is a possibility, but unlikely as this is probably intended for OS level functionality rather than apps provided by Google. Afaik, it would mark a first for Google to use the Play Store in a monopolistic fashion to eliminate competition against its apps.

That leaves my previous hypothesis, that the problem may be that 'android' is included in the name of the app package as the most likely cause of this mess. But, if we launch new apps with revised package names, and get additional warnings, then we'll be back in our current situation except one step closer to losing our developer account.

Hopefully we'll hear back from Google today re. our appeal for the MediaMonkey Beta, and hopefully they'll give us some input.

-Rusty

p.s. I should mention...there are many other Google developer partners who've experienced this nightmare. Stories range from outright banning without explanation, to pirate app developers getting the original app banned, to well-meaning developers not having anyone to clarify how to resolve the problem. It's reasonable for an app to be suspended when appropriate. It's unreasonable when devs work hard to comply and their partner feels that they don't deserve to know why they're being suspended:
http://iwiz-vicky.blogspot.ca/2014/04/p ... ow-to.html
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comment ... _ruin_you/
http://forums.coronalabs.com/topic/4878 ... erminated/
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8838050
http://rootzwiki.com/news/long-past-tim ... -accounts/
http://phandroid.com/2015/01/07/google- ... rsonation/
https://forums.digitalpoint.com/threads ... d.2743956/
https://medium.com/@joshliptzin/this-is ... abad30eb25
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/7-Day-N ... 3015991298
http://www.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comm ... oper_term/
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic ... AJzD8J_5sM
http://andrewpearson.org/?p=681
http://grokbase.com/t/gg/android-develo ... -violation
http://www.meetup.com/blrdroid/messages/75025542/
http://blog.folsoms.info/?cat=7
https://productforums.google.com/forum/ ... CDsBmy6ZoJ
https://thecodegenius.wordpress.com/201 ... ogle-play/
http://nlss.fr/mpdroid/
http://techdissected.com/google/google- ... no-reason/

+ over 3000 devs sign a petition for support re. Policy Violation warnings: https://www.change.org/p/google-inc-pro ... uspensions

[Lowlander]

Why wouldn't Google disclose who the source of the IP complaint is? That way you'd know better what the problem is (Google IP violation, code violation or logo/imagery violation of a third party or even that the App as a whole has been claimed by a third party as their IP).

I don't understand that these App markets (Google and Apple too) throw developers under the bus like this. I understand that there are many bad Apps out there either stealing user data or in violation of some IP, but as these companies exist on the work of App developers they should be more forthcoming with details in trying to resolve issues.

The Android in the name being issue seems strange as Firefox also uses this and there seem to be plenty of other Apps with Android in the name: https://play.google.com/store/search?q=android&c=apps

There could be a problem with Monkey as there is an App called UPnP Monkey, there are also RemoteMonkey/MMRemote, but they're made to work with MediaMonkey.

[rusty]

Why wouldn't Google disclose who the source of the IP complaint is?

I'm not sure why Google doesn't describe to devs more details re. what they consider to be a violation. My guess is that:

• a) this way the policy can remain as flexible as they need it to be (no way to pin anything down)
  b) they might not have enough personnel to support the growing # of Android developers / they don't consider this to be a high priority issue
  c) they consider this to be a legal issue and don't want Play Store support personnel to interface with developers re. legal issues

Regardless, according to their policy, they are being forthcoming in even giving an opaque 7-day warning--their policy seems to be that

Google is not required to send you a warning prior to suspension or termination.

Which is apparently what happened with the MediaMonkey Ringtone Maker; in December we'd reverted the changes that led to an IP warning, and that had apparently solved the problem. But then when I made additional changes to the description this past week (removing all mentions of Android to improve compliance with Branding policy) they removed the app without warning.

Re. Android in the package name--I've seen some claims that this is an issue for some devs, but it's unclear (and the fact that some apps are getting away with this doesn't necessarily mean that it's permitted). Google's branding policy states that "'Android' cannot be used in names of applications", which is unclear as to whether it applies to the app name as well as the package name. A quick phone call or email from someone on their team could easily clarify this, but for some reason, they don't want this to be clear

Re. 'Monkey' in the name, that's a possible problem--which is why I included information in the MediaMonkey Beta appeal indicating when we first started using the trademark mediamonkey. If there was anyone using it before us, we wouldn't have gotten the domain.

-Rusty

[bubbleguuum]

Do these modification and you will be fine:

1. in the app screenshots (and promo graphics), remove all album art. I mean ALL. Don't replace it with images supposedly with a permissive license (Google doesn't care).
Yes it will not look nice, but you'll be safe.
2. in the app description, remove any potential mention to other brands, products and possibly trademarked names. Make the description as short as possible to avoid problems.

It's probable that you got this warning due to 1. Since a few months, Google is literally after any app that shows album art or movie covers (Unless you're Netflix or similar).
It doesn't matter if you have permission to use them or not. Google do not give a s..t (and treat devs as such).
It happened to many apps.

Once you've done that you can republished the app and you should be safe after the 7 day delay.

[dkstott]

Google + is filled with developers complaining about this very issue.

I noticed that the play store has removed Media Monkey Ringtone generator from my phone.

While MMA is not in the store, they haven't reached out and uninstalled it from users yet.

please let us know if there is an address that we can send complaints to in support of MMA & keep us up to date on your progress.

Dave

[dtsig]

Peke, i followed your link and posted a note to Google for what it is worth.
If anyone knows of a better method of letting Google know what we think of their short sighted treatment of devs that they suck money out of .. please let me know.

[Peke]

I do not know if this would help here is an pettition for non automated warnings

http://www.change.org/p/google-inc-prov ... uspensions

[dtsig]

I do not know if this would help here is an pettition for non automated warnings

http://www.change.org/p/google-inc-prov ... uspensions

Did .. please let us know if there is anything else we can do to help.

[Razzmatazz]

If any legitimate trademark holder (e.g. Hasbro or Universal Pictures) perceived logo trademark infringement (e.g. Barrel of Monkeys & 12 Monkeys), then their lawyers would not just file a complaint with Google. Their lawyers would directly provide Ventis Media with a "cease & desist" warning-- and they probably would have done so long ago. Their lawyers would be far more concerned with MMW (than MMA) since MMW has far greater prominence and a larger installed base. It's not like Ventis is hard to find or contact directly.

This seems like a case of a robot flagging the app, and an understaffed review department unable to handle the thousands of robot-flagged app appeals. Unless you have big-boy influence and connections (like Netflix), you just get lost in the soup.

Good luck!

[rusty]

Thanks for your support. And yes, it seems that we're just lost in the maze of Google's process.
From: https://support.google.com/googleplay/a ... 54558?rd=1 :

We feel that a healthy investment in policy education for developers is a much better experience than being notified via a warning or app suspension. Please reference our Policy Education document which outlines common policy compliance pitfalls developers may fall into. We're working to expand this effort with the goal of ensuring that any well-intentioned developer (and otherwise) never runs afoul of our policies.

I expect that google is trying to make this better for it's developer partners...but they're not yet there.

btw, We're still waiting for a response to our appeal for MediaMonkey Beta. Also, we've just filed an appeal re. the suspension of the MediaMonkey Ringtone Maker, and have asked Google's branding team whether it's ok for us to continue including 'android' within the package names (just in case that's the reason for the suspension). If we don't get favorable responses, then we'll have to:
- launch a new version of the ringtone maker
- launch new versions of all of the MMA products that don't contain 'android' within the package name

-Rusty

[rusty]

Some news on this today...

Good news. Google responded yesterday evening to the appeal of the suspension of the MediaMonkey Ringtone Maker, and confirmed that the suspension was due to the inclusion of Album Art (it was in the description and in the default widget). We're cleaning that up now.

Bad news. Google's branding team responded to the request for clarification re. whether 'android' in the package name is a violation of branding guidelines by referring us to the branding guidelines. i.e. it's still unclear.

Since the Play Store team didn't bring up the issue of 'android' being in the product name, and since it's still unclear whether it's a violation, and since changing the product names will void purchases for existing users, we plan on republishing MMA later today with new Album Art images using the existing product names.

Again, thank you all for your patience.

To any developers reading this thread, what I've learned from all this is:
1) Be aware that every update to your product or description can trigger a re-assessment regarding adherence to policy. Don't make changes unless you're ready for a review.
2) Don't assume that a policy warning that is triggered by a product/description update is related to the changes made in that update.
3) If you've received a warning/suspension, carefully review the contents of the Google Apps Policy Center and ask other developers about their experiences if aspects of the Guidelines are unclear.
4) Remember that just because other apps are shipping with policy violations doesn't mean that it's not a violation.
5) If you receive a warning, don't take it lightly. Consider unpublishing your app voluntarily until you're fairly sure that the reason for the violation has been rectified, or risk app suspension and/or account suspension.
6) Use the appeals process. On 2/3 occasions, it failed to yield meaningful results for me, but on the 3rd attempt it worked.
7) Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Set up alternative avenues for users to download/purchase your app (e.g. the Amazon App store).

To any Googlers reading this thread, please try to improve this process.
1) If your goal is really for '...a healthy investment in policy education for developers is a much better experience than being notified via a warning or app suspension', then please clarify your policies so that ambiguities that occur repeatedly are eliminated. e.g. Ventis is not the only developer that isn't clear as to whether 'android' in the package name is a violation or not. Just make it clear.

2) Make your warnings and suspension notices meaningful (or at least more granular), so that developers have a better idea of what to rectify. As an example, the IP warnings that Ventis received were so vague that we spent hours fixing insignificant problems and contesting irrelevant issues without actually solving the problem. This led to wasted effort on our part, but also wasted effort for Google (re-processing appeals, etc.).

3) Understand that in many cases, the violations are accidental and developers want to resolve them. Many of us are Android promoters and tech influencers. Treat us as partners rather than as problems.

Hopefully this story is over...

-Rusty

[Lowlander]

That's great news.

[gpzbc]

[rusty]

fyi, we republished updated listings of MediaMonkey for Android, MediaMonkey for Android Beta, MediaMonkey for Android Pro, and MediaMonkey Ringtone Maker to Google Play last night, and I see that it's now live!

-Rusty