Security News > 2022 > August > Google Play to ban Android VPN apps from interfering with ads

Google in November will prohibit Android VPN apps in its Play store from interfering with or blocking advertising, a change that may pose problems for some privacy applications.

The T&Cs spell out that developers must declare the use of VPNservice in their apps' Google Play listing, must encrypt data from the device to the VPN endpoint, and must comply with Developer Program Policies, particularly those related to ad fraud, permissions, and malware.

Blokada, a Sweden-based maker of an ad-blocking VPN app, worries this rule will hinder at least the previous iteration of its software, v5, and other privacy-oriented software.

"Google claims to be cracking down on apps that are using the VPN service to track user data or rerouting user traffic to earn money through ads," Reda Labdaoui, marketing and sales manager at Blokada, wrote last week in a a forum post.

Labdaoui points to the DuckDuckGo Privacy Browser for Android, which creates a local VPN service to make its App Tracking Protection block tracker server connections, as a potential casualty of the new Play policy.

Google for years has disallowed Android apps that block ads in other Android apps, and its Chrome Web Store includes language that could be used to ban ad blocking extensions if Google chose to do so.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2022/08/30/google_play_vpn_rules_changed/