Our game was suspended without warning from the Google Play Store.
We are using Unity to build to Apple and Android.
Our Internal Test build, where we are testing new features, got flagged for 3 policy violations. For some reason, our live Production track was suspended eventhough it was not flagged.
The issues found are MALWARE, BEHAVIOR TRANSPARENCY AND MOBILE UNWANTED SOFTWARE.
We are committed to fixing this, however we are unable to get in contact with a human, and we only get automated responses from bots.
We have no option to upload a new build with the fixes, everything is disabled in our developer page except the “Appeal” button, which we have already submitted.
We had over 60,000 downloads, been on the Play Store for over a year, and our client is now losing money due to this.
It has been suspended since Monday the 26th of August.
We are reaching out to the Unity community because are at a loss.
Any help or advice will be greatly appreciated!
Any help or resources will be greatly appreciated.
Since it seems that small developers have no choice but to accept the end of their accounts, I tried creating a new one. However, as soon as the app reached the closed testing phase, it was flagged as malware, and another account was blocked.
Now, I am considering trying again with Unity 2021 instead of 2020. Meanwhile, my games on the App Store continue without any issues.
Had the same issue, drowned in depression and frustration, and after extensive research, found the culprit…Unity…somehow.
Unity somehow collects data you might not be explicitly aware of. The issue resides with your privacy declaration. If you’re certain your code doesn’t contain malware, then your app was flagged as malware because you didn’t properly declare the data your app/game collected and transmitted. Meticulously follow the guide provided by Unity for data collection (Unity - Manual: UDP SDK data collection), and as precaution, declare as much data collected as you can. This should do away with the “Malware issue”. You can’t get back on the PlayStore though, not at least with your current identity. New credit card, new phone number, new email, new signing key, new app ids, new PC (located far away as possible from your current location and so on). You will be back on with this
First I’ve heard of this! Is this only affecting people using the UDP? I’ve been re-releasing/updating a game over the past few months and did not have any issues. I am no longer using location tracking, but I was and asked the user for permission. I was not aware that the build was doing any other kind of data collecting and so did not declare anything. These apps are free, have no in-app purchasing or any ads.
Doesn’t matter what features you’re explicitly using, you MUST declare these (Unity - Manual: UDP SDK data collection) in the data collection/safety section.
For some x or y reason, Unity does some “weird” stuff in the background, and because of that, we have to declare all of these. I lost my clean (zero suspensions, zero violations) Play Console account because of this BS. I’m back on the Google Play Store, but now, I am forced to go through the nightmarish 20/12 testers rule for every app/game I release.
Google Play will assume your game or app is malware because it can see your game collecting and transmitting data which you haven’t declared, and as they mention in their Termination email “put a user’s device or data at risk”.