Publishing status: Rejected
After review, your app has been rejected and wasn’t published due to a policy violation. If you submitted an update, the previous version of your app is still available on Google Play. However, your app may be subject to removal if you do not resolve the issue outlined below by October 1, 2019.
Issue: Violation of Families Policy Requirements
Apps that contain elements that appeal to children must comply with all Families Policy Requirements. We found the following issue(s) with your app:
Designed for Families eligibility
After careful consideration, we have determined that your app does not meet our eligibility criteria for the Designed for Families program. Apps in the program must be specifically designed for children or families, have a rating of E or E10+, and include relevant app information.
Here are some examples of common apps that are ineligible for the program:
Apps that are rated ESRB Everyone but contain ads for gambling or any inappropriate content
Apps for parents or care-givers (e.g., breastfeeding tracker, developmental guide)
Parent guides or device management apps that are only intended for use by parents or care-givers
When submitting, the app content questions were different than before.|
Before, I said no to targeting children, and yes to Designed for families.
This time I got a list of ages it is targeting, I was unsure what to do so I selected all the age groups. Several steps later I had the option of selecting Designed for families.
I sent a message to the appeal contact email, asking for more details on why it was rejected.
I believe that the Google Play automated checking software has bugs and reports false positives from time to time.
We received a similar “violation” report for one of the apps that @Bill_Dyck updates. It was a violation of the in-app purchase policy and none of our apps do in-app purchase. So we contacted them via the link in the email. We ALSO rebuilt the app and republished it. By the time the Google Play Support people got back with us, the new build with NO CHANGES was approved. They thanked us for addressing the issue (we made no changes other than rebuilding).
So you can:
try to wait on Google Play Support to respond and see what specifying is violating the policy.
try to rebuild and re-upload and see if you get the same violation.
I personally did not select the lowest age group (or perhaps the lowest two groups, I can’t remember now how they were broken up) as being targeted it a recent app upload, and didn’t have any problems, but it sounds like it may be a fluke, so that might not matter.