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Google Is Removing Ad-Blocking Apps in its Play Store - The Good and The Ugly.


Google  has started cleaning up their Play Store for ad-blocking applications.  This is an expected behavior from a company that earns from advertisements and commercials. Those affected by the "great purge" was properly informed through a letter similar to the one below.






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This is a notification that your application, [Application name and package goes here], has been removed from the Google Play Store.
REASON FOR REMOVAL: Violation of section 4.4 of the Developer Distribution Agreement. 
After a regular review we have determined that your app interferes with or accesses another service or product in an unauthorized manner. This violates the provision of your agreement with Google referred to above. 
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/or the cost of any associated fees (such as chargebacks and transaction fees) from you. 
If your developer account is still in good standing, you may revise and upload a new instance of the application that is compliant with the developer terms. Before uploading any new applications, please review the Developer Distribution Agreement and Content Policy. 
If you feel we have made this determination in error, you can visit this Google Play Help Center article for additional information regarding this removal. 
The Google Play Team
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Section 4.4 of the Developer Distribution Agreement states that :
You agree that you will not engage in any activity with the Market, including the development or distribution of Products, that interferes with, disrupts, damages, or accesses in an unauthorized manner the devices, servers, networks, or other properties or services of any third party including, but not limited to, Android users, Google or any mobile network operator. You may not use customer information obtained from the Market to sell or distribute Products outside of the Market.

The Good

 This is good news for developers who rely on ads for their craft to cash in some money. With the removal of ad-blocking apps, the possibility of earning more from ads is a good thing. If we will assume that this added revenue will motivate the developers more to create a more intuitive  and better designed app, then, this will be a plus to the users in the long run.

The Ugly

 Need I say more? All users who despise this ads will be more furious. They will no longer find ad-blocking  tools in the official Google Play Store. However, they can still side load these apps using APKs' downloaded from the wild ( which is not 100% malware free). Which leads us to the developers specializing on ad-blocking technology, they will resort to other venues for selling their apps and that can be too risky.

I don't have any issues with Google on this move. Its their store and they have the right to implement rules which they think would make it better.  What worry me most is the fact that this move may release the evil of advertising even more to the smartphone users, particularly, us android users. But for now I am leaning towards the optimistic view that this move will bolster the desire of developers to innovate and be more creative knowing that they have now a better chance of earning.   How about you?

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