Google Removes 600 Apps From The Play Store Over Disruptive Ads

These days, we’re starting to see more apps take the free-to-play approach. It is understandable because by removing the cost to play the game, players might be more tempted to give it a shot. However, developers and publishers still need to get paid, and as a result, ads are typically inserted into these games as a means of generating revenue.

Unfortunately, sometimes the ads chosen by developers and publishers can be annoying and disruptive, ultimately affecting the overall user experience, and as such, Google has since announced that they have removed about 600 apps from the Play Store that have been found to contain what Google claims are “disruptive ads”.

According to Google, “We define disruptive ads as ads that are displayed to users in unexpected ways, including impairing or interfering with the usability of device functions. While they can occur in-app, one form of disruptive ads we’ve seen on the rise is something we call out-of-context ads, which is when malicious developers serve ads on a mobile device when the user is not actually active in their app.”

Google also adds, “We recently developed an innovative machine-learning based approach to detect when apps show out-of-context ads, which led to the enforcement we’re announcing today.”

Tyler Lee
Categories: Cellphones
Tags: Android, Apps, Google