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I swear I am not a Google plant. I JUST went through the same process the OP did (literally yesterday). The Play reviewer took down the app because they though

I swear I am not a Google plant. I JUST went through the same process the OP did (literally yesterday). The Play reviewer took down the app because they thought they needed sign-in information to test it (like the OP). However, this was based on a misunderstanding of some menu item in the app - the app, in fact, is perfectly usable without signing in. I replied to the original email I had received about the problem, and... A few days later, a real human replied that they agreed with my take, and had removed the objection. However, they had found other policy violations, regarding the maturity rating viz-a-viz the app contents (it's a game). They included screen shots, showing that they had not only played the game, but pretty thoroughly, too. Again, I followed the recommendations to comply (went over the rating wizard) and requested a re-evaluation. This was done a day later and the app re-instated. Done. I was super surprised about how well the process worked. I even went through the trouble of completing their little support survey with praise. I had been bracing myself for a Kafkaesque nightmare when the app was taken down, considering just how many app updates Google reviewers must be going through on a daily basis, and I'm pretty sure each violation is met with some sort of discussion from the developer's side. Not to mention the reputation Google has earned for support. It goes to show that people have different experiences, and not all of them are negative. EDIT: Just wanted to add that I don't think the OP's story is particularly egregious either. So Google auto-translates your app title? I guess you opted into this somewhere, at least they don't do this for my app. And I would never assume that Google would sit and hand-translate app titles to every language. And in either case, it actually looks like OP got timely and fairly accurate advice. I must sound like some starry-eyed Google fanboy, but I'm really not, just not seeing it here.

quambene 5y ago
Google did recently update its review process. I was complaining about its previous review process for 10 months at least. It's a little better now. Previously, an app was suspended without any warning. You even couldn't comply with their requirements neither because they would deactivate access to the app in question in Google Play Console. Your only chance was an appeals request. Your app still suspended in the meantime which could be months. And you might loose all ratings, reviews, and downloads of your app. My feedback at this time was: > An easy but important improvement in Google Play: 1.) Don't suspend and remove the complete package id from Google Play, but instead just prevent the specific app update from publishing 2.) If the app update doesn't comply with Google's policies, then give developers the opportunity to fix that 3.) Developer submits a new app update which does comply 4.) App update gets approved by Google 5.) Google is happy and developers are happy Which might be the case now. At least in Germany.
Liquid_Fire 5y ago
> So Google auto-translates your app title? I guess you opted into this somewhere, at least they don't do this for my app. The way I understood it, what they are actually doing is auto-translating the localised (by the developer) title back to English for the purpose of running automated checks on it, and rejecting based on this automatic translation turning a word that implies nothing about price in the original language into the English word "free".
- jvzr 5y ago
  I understood it like you did. She--the author--even wrote that she had translators for all the languages supported by the app, hence the 50-to-30 chars kerfuffle.
bryanrasmussen 5y ago
>So Google auto-translates your app title? I mean my reading is that she and her translators hand translate the title, and then Google uses Google Translate to make sure it follows particular rules, and one of the rules it should not say it is free? >And I would never assume that Google would sit and hand-translate app titles to every language. maybe the assumption is that they would not autotranslate app titles for the target language of a particular app store. I mean you do understand that the app stores of different languages are obviously not in English? And that there is a very long and funny tradition of translating from one language to English and back to show how things get lost in translation? At least if they used google translate they should have some sort of tool that allowed you to see if there were some suggested texts that would be less problematic so a reviewer (or bot in this case I suppose) could ask the developer. So that it could say you used the word vrij, which is most commonly understood as free, but there are these other usages which did you intend. Get a result and then run it past a human very quick for an ok / not ok decision. But no, Google translate is good enough. >just not seeing it here. I have a hard time seeing how it is not crystal clear. on edit: fixed missing words.

quambene 5y ago

Google did recently update its review process. I was complaining about its previous review process for 10 months at least. It's a little better now. Previously, an app was suspended without any warning. You even couldn't comply with their requirements neither because they would deactivate access to the app in question in Google Play Console. Your only chance was an appeals request. Your app still suspended in the meantime which could be months. And you might loose all ratings, reviews, and downloads of your app. My feedback at this time was: > An easy but important improvement in Google Play: 1.) Don't suspend and remove the complete package id from Google Play, but instead just prevent the specific app update from publishing 2.) If the app update doesn't comply with Google's policies, then give developers the opportunity to fix that 3.) Developer submits a new app update which does comply 4.) App update gets approved by Google 5.) Google is happy and developers are happy Which might be the case now. At least in Germany.

Liquid_Fire 5y ago

> So Google auto-translates your app title? I guess you opted into this somewhere, at least they don't do this for my app. The way I understood it, what they are actually doing is auto-translating the localised (by the developer) title back to English for the purpose of running automated checks on it, and rejecting based on this automatic translation turning a word that implies nothing about price in the original language into the English word "free".

jvzr 5y ago
I understood it like you did. She--the author--even wrote that she had translators for all the languages supported by the app, hence the 50-to-30 chars kerfuffle.

bryanrasmussen 5y ago

>So Google auto-translates your app title? I mean my reading is that she and her translators hand translate the title, and then Google uses Google Translate to make sure it follows particular rules, and one of the rules it should not say it is free? >And I would never assume that Google would sit and hand-translate app titles to every language. maybe the assumption is that they would not autotranslate app titles for the target language of a particular app store. I mean you do understand that the app stores of different languages are obviously not in English? And that there is a very long and funny tradition of translating from one language to English and back to show how things get lost in translation? At least if they used google translate they should have some sort of tool that allowed you to see if there were some suggested texts that would be less problematic so a reviewer (or bot in this case I suppose) could ask the developer. So that it could say you used the word vrij, which is most commonly understood as free, but there are these other usages which did you intend. Get a result and then run it past a human very quick for an ok / not ok decision. But no, Google translate is good enough. >just not seeing it here. I have a hard time seeing how it is not crystal clear. on edit: fixed missing words.