Android Market content rating when using Admob

[Markus Wiederkehr]

As you all know Android Market requires the content to be rated on a
scale from 'everyone' to 'high maturity'. Quote: "This includes all
content, including [..] advertisements."

Without Admob I would rate my app as appropriate for everyone.

The question is, what is the appropriate content rating when using
Admob. A lot of apps seem to use 'everyone' but I am not sure if this
is correct.

I have disabled the categories Politics, Religion and Age Appropriate
Ads. Also AdSense is turned off at the moment.

What would be the appropriate rating for this setup? And what if Age
Appropriate Ads or AdSense (or both) were turned on? (With AdSense
turned on I'd completely lose control over the content.)

[Jim]

Since Android no longer has "Everyone" as an option, that leaves Low,
Medium and High.

High Maturity requires that the "focus" of the app be on certain types
of content. So, unless the focus of your app is ads, then advertising
content can't force your app into a High Maturity category (although
the combination of borderline content and age appropriate ads might).

That leaves Low and Medium. And, given Adsense and AdMob current
policies for advertiser content, it really only leaves the possibility
that the ads "contain references to drugs, alcohol or tobacco
products." All other content categories requires the app to have
features that include Medium maturity content, or Adsense/AdMob policy
prohibits the ads from having content that would result in a Medium
Maturity rating. At the least, it is hard to imagine ads that: contain
inflammatory content, realistic or intense fantasy violence or
profanity/crude humor, etc. - and have someone willing to pay to
publish those ads, and still have them meet Adsense/AdMob advertiser
guidelines.

That leaves a very narrow group of ads that could push an app from Low
Maturity to Medium. It seems that ad filters need to be addressed for
Adsense ads if you want to guarantee a Low Maturity rating. I haven't
seen inappropriate ads that contain references that would be
categorized as "Medium Maturity", but maybe I should look harder and a
statement from AdMob would be reassuring.

-Jim

On Aug 10, 4:09 pm, Markus Wiederkehr <markus.wiederk...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[Markus Wiederkehr]

Thanks, Jim. I still see Everyone as an option, both in 'Edit
Application' and the official documentation [1].

But I don't think that Everyone would be appropriate, anyway. Although
many AdMob-supported apps seem to use that value.

I think that leaves Low and Medium like you say. When you write "ad
filters need to be addressed for Adsense ads" you mean addressed by
Google, right? Or is there a way of filtering Adsense ads that I am
not aware of?

Still hoping for an official answer from AdMob/Google...

Markus

[1] http://www.google.com/support/androidmarket/developer/support/bin/answer.py?answer=188189

[Jim]

I had "Everyone" disabled on my apps, but now I realize that is
because we use location based information, so it was automatically
disabled (it used to be an option for us, too).

And yes, I mean that AdMob/Google need to provide filtering options
for the ads. As you put it, that would mean either the Backfill is pre-
filtered already (so that current apps are not inappropriately Content
Rated) or using Backfill would potentially violate your app's rating
without you being aware of it (since our apps weren't rated "Everyone"
to begin with, it was not an issue for us when we considered doing
Adsense backfill).

That seems like a big problem for the Adsense backfill option, and the
integration effort overall. I'm sure they have a large pile of
integration issues... I hope this was near the top of their list. It
would probably be in AdMob's best interest to address the content
rating of backfilled ads, if filters are not available, the ads are
not pre-filtered and developers, who are not lawyers, start getting
apps re-rated or even pulled because of inappropriate content.

-Jim

On Aug 11, 2:51 pm, Markus Wiederkehr <markus.wiederk...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Thanks, Jim. I still see Everyone as an option, both in 'Edit
> Application' and the official documentation [1].
>
> But I don't think that Everyone would be appropriate, anyway. Although
> many AdMob-supported apps seem to use that value.
>
> I think that leaves Low and Medium like you say. When you write "ad
> filters need to be addressed for Adsense ads" you mean addressed by
> Google, right? Or is there a way of filtering Adsense ads that I am
> not aware of?
>
> Still hoping for an official answer from AdMob/Google...
>
> Markus
>

> [1]http://www.google.com/support/androidmarket/developer/support/bin/ans...

[Markus Wiederkehr]

Probably the ideal solution would be if AdMob/AdSense would automatically take the app's content rating into account and only serve ads that are appropriate for the app. An app rated 'Everyone' would only receive ads suitable for everyone, and so on.

This way we wouldn't have to be lawyers and could easily choose the desired level of maturity.

Markus