In April 2023, we'll start enforcing ACR-013 (you can find it on our ACR checklist), which is our attempt to help the software monetization industry get over their habit of making unrelated offers during critical moments of the software experience.
We want the industry to change their interrupting behavior, because we know that consumers are tricked into thinking that these kinds of offers and ads are part of the app, and that their acceptance is required. We don't want consumers to be tricked, so we worked with the anti-malware ecosystem and the platforms to come up with this new Deceptor-level requirement to stop this behavior.
Here's an real-life example: during an install of the Opera web browser, as the user clicks through their EULA and privacy policy acceptance and choosing their settings, their install experience is interrupted with an offer for an unrelated app (in this case, it was an offer for Hotspot Shield):
We believe that this interrupting behavior, especially when it occurs during an app's acquisition workflows (like install, upgrade, uninstall, purchase), is misleading, deceptive, and unwanted. Between now and the end of March, we'll work on notifying the software monetization industry about this change, including answering any questions they may have. Starting next April, we'll enforce this ACR: we won't certify apps that break it, and, at our discretion, we'll list apps breaking it on our active Deceptor list.
The ACR Checklist link above shows the exact requirement, the intent behind the requirement, and some practical guidance for how to be in compliance with it. If you have additional questions about your own implementation for ACR-013, we encourage you to get in touch with us at [email protected]. We'll do our best to answer. You may also want to consider signing up for our one-time-review service, or our certification service, both of which can help you stay in compliance with all of our Application Certification Requirements.