New section warns developers against using fishy tactics for app promotion

Google sent out an email to Android app developers this afternoon, letting them know about some changes to the Google Play Developer Program policy. While Android is open source and free to distribute and build, to get Google's stamp of approval and access to Google Play there are rules everyone must follow. Getting an app published to Google play is no different. You're expected to follow a basic set of guidelines, and if you're found to be outside of these rules, your app gets the boot. If it happens enough times, your developer account gets the boot. Those rules are what got a minor update today.

While most of the changes are just minor tweaks to verbiage — explicit material is still forbidden, and now so are icons that display it; apps with in-app purchases now have to declare that in-app purchases use real money, and like changes — to close loopholes that apparently someone was trying to squeeze through. But there is one new section, and it's all about app promotion.