Google Puts an end to AdBlockers On GooglePlay

Posted on Thursday, March 14th, 2013 at 1:49 am.

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

google removes adblockers from googleplay www.gizmophiliacs.com

Such is the message which many adblocker developers are receiving from google. Google apparently is hell bent on the removal adblocking apps on google play. These adblocking sites apparently violate section 4.4 of the Developer Distribution Agreement.ad blockers clearly do interfere with the properties and services of third parties (including Google, which is probably a big one not to interfere with). Most of the popular ad-blocking tools seem to have vanished – including Adblock Plus, which recently fell victim to a bug fix in Android that made the service much more difficult to use. Another very widely-downloaded solution, AdFree Android, is also gone.

What is the Section 4.4 ?

4.4 Prohibited Actions. 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 key language here is regarding the interference of third-party clients’ services, networks and properties. This can be interpreted to mean that ad-blocking software adversely affects applications which implement ad code they’re targeting (including, but not limited to, Google’s own AdSense ads). Google’s not in the wrong with such an interpretation, and with high stakes in the matter — it does make most of its money from advertising, after all — they stand to have a heightened degree of interest in all this.