Allowed networks with new Google Ad network certification

Solar2D Monetization (in-app purchases, ads, etc.)
#1

I just received an email noting the Google Play is introducing a new Ad network certification program.

One important part is that it notes is that "If your target age groups include children and

you want to serve ads to them, you must use one of the ad networks".

The current allowed Google Ad network list is:

Adcolony, Admob, Applovin, ChartBoost, StartApp, SuperAwesome, Unity, Vungle,

This strongly suggests that if your app doesn’t exclude kids with an age limit, you would

need to use only those Ad networks. So this would seem to effect almost all general

audience games, etc.

Am I understanding it correctly in that, Corona users submitting general audience games

will need to stop using plugins for other Ad networks (until they are added to the list)?

Would the Appodeal beta plugin still be allowed if we only included the plugins

from the listed Ad networks, or would it be consider by Google to be a different

network by itself?

#2

No idea. To me this seems like another attempt to make sure you only use Admob and Admob mediation.You can configure Appodeal to only use those networks but they send many impressions from DSPs. So don’t think those would be certified.

How about cross-promos or direct deals? Am I as a developer or publisher need to get certified to cross-promote my apps or to sell my impressions directly? I suspect that they would prefer you sell all your inventory to Admob and then advertise on their network to cross-promote.

#3

I guess we will find out how strict they are about this if devs using the other Ad networks

start posting about getting their apps suspended for it.

I think people doing cross-promos will be much lower on the hit list than larger Ad networks.

But you are right, that would still seem to violate the terms unless you get certified.

#4

The list of certified providers is growing, but still pretty small.  If you are using the Corona Appodeal plugin you can restrict the providers that will be used during init().  

Still, there’s no way to tell the age of the player unless you do the neutral age screen, and then programically reduce the amount of providers if the player identifies as a child or teen.  

The restrictions are getting pretty intense in the market.  Used to be a lot easier posting to Google…

#5

As an update, I got a notification from google today telling me that I had to complete the target audience

details. When you put target ages that include anyone under 13 you now have to certify that you are indeed

only using companies from their approved list. This means removing a lot of the default companies

included with appodeal (e.g. facebook, flurry, mytarget, tapjoy, twitter, etc).

I still don’t know if appodeal itself is consider a non-approved network.