Parental control app Boomerang repeatedly blocked from Play Store, losing business - TechCrunch

Google did the same — for over a month at least — or so alleges parental control app maker Boomerang.

Like Apple, Google also has a set of rules developers have to agree to in order to publish apps on the Google Play store.

Apple then had suddenly removed a host of third-party screen time and parental control apps, shortly after introducing its own Screen Time solution within iOS 12.

On July 6th, Boomerang had to inform users of the problem, as they had become increasingly frustrated they couldn’t find the app on Google Play.

On July 8th, Boomerang received a reply from Google with more information, explaining that Google doesn’t allow apps that change the user’s device settings or features outside the app without user’s knowledge or consent.

Boomerang later that day received a second violation notification after it changed the app to be explicitly clear to the end user (the child) that the Device Administrator (a parent) would have permission to control the device, mimicking other apps Boomerang said were still live on Google Play.

On July 13th, Boomerang was informed Google was still examining the app.

The next day, Boomerang informed its user base that it may have to remove the feature they wanted and emailed Google to again point out the app now has clear consent included.

Despite not having made any changes, Google informed Boomerang on July 16th it’s in violation of the “Elevated Privilege Abuse” section of the Google Play Malware policy.

On July 19th, the company removed the additional app protection feature and on July 21st, Google again rejected the app for the same violation — over a feature that had now been removed.

Despite repeated emails, Boomerang didn’t receive any message from Google until an automated email arrived on July 24th.

The company, after a few follow-ups, told TechCrunch on August 3rd that the issues with Boomerang — as later emails to Boomerang had said — were related to how the app implemented its features.

Google also said it doesn’t allow any apps to use the same mechanism Boomerang does, including Google’s own.

Boomerang has begun collecting the names of other similarly impacted apps, like Filter Chrome, Minder Parental Control and Netsanity