Google Bans Podcast Addict From Play Store Over Covid-19 References In Podcasts
Podcast Addict has been suspended by Google, meaning the podcast app can no longer be found in the Play Store. The suspension is related to the fact that the app would refer to covid-19, while that seems to apply at most to the podcasts that are indexed in the app.
The creator of Podcast Addict, Xavier Guillemane, show on Twitter that he received a notification from Google over the weekend, showing that his app has been suspended. Google points to a relatively new part of the Developer Distribution Agreement, which states that apps that refer to covid-19 or related terms are only allowed for distribution on Google Play if they are published and authorized by official government agencies or public health organizations. For example, according to the information sent from Google, Guillemane should adapt his app, removing references or keywords related to covid-19.
Podcast Addict is currently still not available in the Play Store. It was a free to download app that had been around for about nine years. Podcast Addict is a podcast player app that connects users to all kinds of podcasts, but the content being listened to is not hosted by Podcast Addict. The app was quite popular, as evidenced by the 511,000 mostly very positive user reviews. To date, 2 billion podcast episodes have been downloaded via Podcast Addict and the maker tells The Verge that the app has already been downloaded almost 10 million times.
The revenue model of the app consisted entirely of advertisements from Google. Guillemane complains that he is a victim of a Google algorithm and that he made his living from the revenue from the app. He states that the Google Play Store has no fields for metadata or keywords and that there is only a description field about the app, where according to the maker never mentioned covid-19. The term also comes for the disease that arises from the coronavirus according to Guillemane not in the source code of the app. He states that the app gives access to third-party content and that there is currently a lot of talk about covid-19.
Guillemane said it could take up to seven days to hear back from Google about his appeal against the suspension. He says that Google is basically asking him to ‘repair‘ and publish it as a new app. That would mean that the accumulated download and review numbers of the past ten years completely disappear.
Existing users can still use the app, but in-app purchases are no longer possible. New users can no longer find the app via the Play Store and existing users can no longer install the app on another device. The app is as apk too sideload.