Re: Using our own apps in production

[Richard Pillay]

Thanks Andrew. I've read the guidelines and the T&Cs and I read that, but it doesn't answer the question - in fact it falls so far short of answering the question that the gaping hole is the reason I asked the question here. Surely, in a roomful of developers, someone must have faced the problem before and knows the answer.

I'm not a developer by day - I've written an app that I use in my job, and is downloaded and used by others like me. Surely, during the day, when I'm working rather than developing, I (and Google) should consider myself a user rather than a developer. A user who needs to be mindful of the ethics of needlessly clicking on the ads, but a user all the same!

I guess, though that the situation may be unique enough that Google doesn't care to cater for it. The only reason I care is that it is a PITA to keep on top of ensuring every device I use is listed as a test device, expecially the ones I've rooted and try out different firmware on - each time you do that, the device ID changes and my code has to be changed to include the new ID.

If you need to delete this thread because it's not strictly technical, feel free.

Best Regards,

Richard.

On 20 December 2014 at 11:56, Andrew Brogdon (Mobile Ads SDK Team) <mobileadssdk-...@google.com> wrote:

This forum is for answering technical questions about the AdMob SDK rather than issues of policy, but I can point you to the help section for this on AdMob.com:

https://support.google.com/admob/answer/2753860

It states, "Publishers may not click their own ads or use any means to inflate impressions and/or clicks artificially, including manual methods. Testing your own ads by clicking on them is not allowed."  This is why we encourage developers to enable test ads on any device used for development.

-Andrew

On Friday, December 19, 2014 2:39:26 PM UTC-8, Richard Pillay wrote:

I've tried to find this in the T&Cs but it's not covered, so here goes nothing...

I've been worried by people saying in posts that they've been banned for clicking on their own ads. Worried to the point where I ensure that every device I own is listed as a development device. However, this means that I can't get ads on my devices when I'm using my own apps which bugs me, because one of the nice things about Mobile ads is Google's attempt to serve relevant ads. For example, when my son was searching for information about tyres for his car, his app served him ads from local tyre dealers.

Surely, I would be entitled to use my own app in normal life, serving ads (and getting paid for them) as long as I'm not clicking on the ad just to raise revenue? I don't use my physical devices for testing - all my testing is done on emulators.

Does anybody know what the policy is, and where it can be found? I can find something for AdSense which says if a Webmaster is interested in an ad he shouldn't click on it, but enter the URL manually into a browser, but I can't find anything related to AdMob (or should I say Play Services?)

Best Regards,

Richard.

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[William Ferguson]

Richard, Google is clearly interested in maintaining the integrity of the ad marketplace. This benefits both them and you as an ad publisher.

The Admob policy states that they will target *artificial* inflation of requests/clicks. You do your development on emulators so AFAICT you would have no need to inject your device_ids as test devices into your app. I would consider that you are a user if you are just using the app. The policy would kick in if you started clicking on the ad on your app just to boost the number of clicks. At that point you might find your account frozen. And Google is good with data, they'd have a fair idea of how to distinguish between you clicking on ads like any other user and you abusing the system. So if you are just another user I'd say you are safe.

William

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