Ads-lite SMS tracking

[Tomáš Kuba]

Hello,

recently, our app update was rejected. The reason was, that we read SMS/MMS, and we do not have this fact mentioned in our data safety form. However, our app does not read SMS. Moreover, we do not ask for such permission. After some investigation  of manifests of libraries we use, we have found out that SMS is required by ads-lite library. We use this one (although we believe that this is not related to this version of the library only):

com.google.android.gms:play-services-ads-lite:23.6.0

The SMS-related code in manifest:

<intent>
    <action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
     <data android:scheme="sms" />
</intent>

I have solved this by explicitly removing sms from manifest:

<intent tools:node="remove">
    <action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
    <data android:scheme="sms" />

</intent> 

My question is - can I do this without affecting ads-lite library or break any rules? Or is there some other way how to prohibit SMS usage? Because in case I have really simple app, lets say calculator with ads, it would be really suspicious if I ask for SMS access, and it would damage trust to my app in a big way. Thank you for your help.

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hi,

Could you tell me which store you are using to upload application ? is this with Google Console? If possible, kindly send me the full rejection screenshots with rejection summary.

Thanks,
 

Mobile Ads SDK Team

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[2025-07-14 13:59:19Z GMT] This message is in relation to case "ref:!00D1U01174p.!500Ht01svRdD:ref" (ADR-00318486)

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hi,

Yes, you can remove the SMS intent just to get your app approved, this will not affect ad performance or policy violation. Since this code is used for the MRAID related configuration. For more details. you can refer to https://developers.google.com/ad-manager/mobile-ads-sdk/android/mraid and the MRAID spec doc.

Thanks,
 

Mobile Ads SDK Team

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[2025-07-15 14:50:36Z GMT] This message is in relation to case "ref:!00D1U01174p.!500Ht01svRdD:ref" (ADR-00318486)

[Tomáš Kuba]

Thank you very much for the clarification :)

Kind regards

--

S pozdravom,

Ing. Tomáš Kuba