Several more adjustments are included in Google’s new policies. For example, if their app sells subscriptions, developers will be forced to connect to an “easy-to-use, online option” for cancelling subscriptions – the firm did state that links to Google Play’s subscription centre qualify. Google is also clamping down on health misinformation, adding a section stating that applications cannot provide inaccurate information about immunizations, unapproved therapies, or “other hazardous health practises, such as conversion therapy.”
The update also updates the terminology around monitoring applications, or “stalkerware,” stating that any programme designed to follow users must utilise a special marker informing Google what it’s doing and that apps must state in their Play Store description that they may monitor or track you. (These applications are still only permitted to follow workers and children – Google expressly states that using these apps to track someone else, such as a spouse, is prohibited, even if the user claims the person being tracked is aware of it.)
The amended “Impersonation” section has one rather amusing tidbit: in addition to other firms, developers, and organisations, Google’s new guidelines state that developers cannot attempt to fool customers into believing their app is linked with an “entity” if it is not. As an example, Google offers an app with iconography that might lead users to believe it is linked with a government or cryptocurrency initiative.
