San Francisco — Attempting to avoid any unwanted controversy, Mountain View, Calif.-based, search engine titan Google had suggested that it will make it mandatory for developers to add content ratings for all apps in Android Market. The new rules, according to the company, aroused as a result of Android users asking for more information on apps.
The Android Market is all geared up for introducing content ratings for all apps. Developers need to add any one of the four content rating levels–all existing and future programs and games must add an age rating such as: All, Pre-teen, Teen or Mature.
“Beginning next week, developers will be required to include a rating for all new and updated games they add to the Android Market. This new capability will provide users with additional information to help them select the best applications for them,” Eric Chu, who works with Google’s Android Developer Ecosystem wrote in a blog post.
On the official Android Developer blog, Chu said that developers will now have to include a rating for all new and updated games they add to the Android Market. He further noted that the content ratings will provide users with additional information to help them select the best applications for them.
Google is making the modification in response to Android users demanding for more information about applications, Chu said.
Android already has a content rating policy in place, but it is not visible to users, and apparently not strictly enforced. However, content ratings are an important and easy way to distinguish the apps meant for mature audience only. With Gingerbread 2.3 on the anvil, Google is once again indirectly preaching the “Do No Evil” ideology.
Android has long been known as the “naughty” apps site allowing users to download porn after Apple and Microsoft put in place measures to stop developers from creating these apps. With this latest content rating policy, adults and kids alike can distinguish much more easily whether the app they are looking at is suitable, check out this link.
The ratings are split into different categories, All, Pre-Teen, Teen and Mature. However, if a developer decides not to stick a rating on an updated or new app, it will be automatically marked in the group Mature.
In the past, Apple has faced numerous problems with the un-rated sleazy content in the iOS Apps. Hence, with iOS 3.0 update implementation, Apple has made it mandatory for developers to give appropriate rating to apps. Since 2009, Apple has been classifying games with 4+, 9+, 12+ and 17+ ratings. Ever since iOS 3.0 you have been able to bar an iPhone from downloading apps that are above a certain rating.
Interestingly, Apple CEO Steve Jobs has taken jabs at Google for the policy. Apple examines all applications before adding them to the iPhone App Store. At the unveiling of iOS 4 in April, Jobs said Apple had no plans to open up the store, implying that accepting any application would turn it into a source of porn, back then, he recommended Android as the place to go if you wanted porn.
The move may also be a response to criticism that the Android Market is a source of porn, although one of its attractions is the fact that it is not as closed off as Apple’s App Store.
Google’s policy is to allow any application in the market, and then remove any that are found to break its rules. For example, the boundary between Pre-Teen fantasy violence and Teen realistic violence can be blurred.