HIGHLIGHTS
Google's ad policy does not allow ads that display when an app is not in use or that trick users to click on ads by mistake.
600 apps have been removed from ad monetisation platforms Google AdMob and Google Ad Manager.
Most of the apps removed from the Play Store were mainly made by developers from China, Singapore, Hong Kong, India, and Singapore.
Google has removed 600 Android apps from its Play Store. The company announced through a blog post that these apps were serving “disruptive” ads. The apps have been removed from ad monetisation platforms Google AdMob and Google Ad Manager for violating its disruptive ad policy and disallowed interstitial policy. For reference, the policy does not allow ads that display when an app is not in use or that trick users to click on ads by mistake.
Per Bjorke, Senior Product Manager, Ad Traffic Quality, Google wrote in a post, “this is an invasive maneuver that results in poor user experiences that often disrupt key device functions and this approach can lead to unintentional ad clicks that waste advertiser spend.”
According to Google, these ads are “displayed to users in unexpected ways, including impairing or interfering with the usability of device functions.” Hence, this helped enforce the latest removal. Google is planning to bring new technologies to detect and prevent “emerging threats that can generate invalid traffic, including disruptive ads, and to find more ways to adapt and evolve” the platform.
Most of the apps removed from the Play Store were mainly made by developers from China, Singapore, Hong Kong, India, and Singapore. However, the names of specific developers and apps have not been released.
Moreover, Bjorke told BuzzFeed News that Google had started refunding the brands whose ads were displayed through disruptive ads.
It is not the first time that Google has taken this kind of action. To recall, it banned the Chinese developer CooTek last July for using an adware plug-in that sent users aggressive ads even when an app was not in use.
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