Consent re-confirmation for under 18 users accessing Additional Services will soon be required

What’s changing

When a Google Workspace for Education admin chooses to enable Additional Services for students under the age of 18 to use, they acknowledge that they may be required to collect parental or guardian consent. This includes access to services like YouTube, Google Translate, Google Photos, Google Books, Google Earth and more.

In September 2024, we communicated that we now require admins who have Additional Services enabled for users under the age of 18 to re-review them on an annual basis. Admins are always in control of which services their users have access to, and this gives admins an opportunity to ensure the right users have access to the right services.

  • If admins do not want to provide access to Additional Services for their under 18 users, they can turn them off for those users. 
  • If admins want to keep Additional services enabled for under 18 users, they need to reconfirm parental consent in the admin console.  
  • If admins do not take action, under 18 users who previously had access to Additional Services will lose access in the coming weeks. Admins can re-enable access to Additional Services at any time. 

How admins can take action
Admins were first provided notice of this re-confirmation requirement in September 2024, which indicated a 6 months notice to complete the re-review process before the March 2025 rollout. The banner in the admin console has turned red to alert admins that action is required. While the rollout begins in March, it might take several weeks before some users in your organization are impacted.

You can easily view which applications require consent reconfirmation from Admin console > Apps > Additional Google services. You can re-confirm consent by checking the box next to the app, hovering over the app, or using the three-dot overflow menu. 

Experience for impacted end users
If users lose access to a specific service they’ll be notified “Your Google Workspace for Education account is designated as under 18 and your organization’s admin has not granted you access to this Additional Service. To regain access, inform your admin that you need this service to be enabled.“ 



Who’s impacted

Admins and end users under the age of 18


Why it’s important

Admins are in control of which services their users have access to, and to do so in alignment with both our terms of service and local laws and regulations that determine what services are appropriate for users under 18. Since admins manage which services their students have access to, only they can enable or disable access for their under 18 users. 


This is a guide to support admins with collecting consent from parents, which includes this template for communicating with parents and guardians around collecting consent. 

Additional details

The requirement to review and re-confirm access to Additional Products is an annual requirement customers must complete for their under 18 users, subject to their Google Workspace for Education Terms of Service. 

Getting started


Rollout pace


Availability

This change impacts Google Workspace:
  • Education Fundamentals, Standard, and Plus

Resources




Introducing AppSheet User Pass

What’s changing

Starting today, you can license any user of your apps with AppSheet User Pass. Each User Pass grants unlimited access to an AppSheet app for the month and your users can consume as many User Pass licenses as they need. This gives you the flexibility to pay for the features that will make a difference for your users, whether they are internal or external to your organization, signed-in or unauthenticated.

Additional details

How is an AppSheet User Pass is different from traditional Google Workspace licenses?:

  1. User Pass licenses are available to your app users as a pool, rather than assigned to individual users through the Google Admin console. Licenses are automatically consumed each time an eligible user accesses one of your AppSheet Enterprise Plus or AppSheet Core apps. Eligible users include those that do not already have an AppSheet license or have a license of a lower tier than the app owner, including internal, external, or unauthenticated users.

  2. Users consume a license for each app they use - allowing you to license your app users at a discounted rate. User Pass will not independently grant these users the ability to build apps with Core or Enterprise features, but it is possible for an eligible user to consume more than one User Pass license if they access multiple unique apps in a month. For example:


Please also note that:
  • The pool of User Pass licenses resets at the end of the calendar month and unused licenses do not rollover. You will only be charged for the user pass licenses that you have committed to purchase.
  • AppSheet User Pass will be available through Workspace and the Partner Sales Console. 
  • We recently alerted customers that starting April 10, 2025, the AppSheet Enterprise Standard External User and AppSheet Enterprise Plus External User licenses will no longer be available for purchase. Customers with existing external user licenses will not see any interruption in service during this transition and will receive additional notice with next steps.

Getting started

Rollout pace

Availability

Available for Google Workspace:
  • Business Starter, Standard, and Plus
  • Enterprise Starter, Standard, and Plus
  • Education Standard and Plus
  • Frontline Standard
  • AppSheet Enterprise Plus

Resources


Robots Refresher: page-level granularity

With the robots.txt file, site owners have a simple way to control which parts of a website are accessible by crawlers. To help site owners further express how search engines and web crawlers can use their pages, the web standards group came up with robots meta tags in 1996, just a few months after meta tags were proposed for HTML (and anecdotally, also before Google was founded). Later, X-Robots-Tag HTTP response headers were added. These instructions are sent together with a URL, so crawlers can only take them into account if they're not disallowed from crawling the URL through the robots.txt file. Together, they form the Robots Exclusion Protocol (REP).

Stable Channel Update for ChromeOS / ChromeOS Flex

M-133,  ChromeOS version 16151.61.0 (Browser version 133.0.6943.184), has rolled out to ChromeOS devices on the Stable channel.

If you find new issues, please let us know one of the following ways:

  1. File a bug

  2. Visit our ChromeOS communities

    1. General: Chromebook Help Community

    2. Beta Specific: ChromeOS Beta Help Community

  3. Report an issue or send feedback on Chrome

  4. Interested in switching channels? Find out how.


Andy Wu

Google ChromeOS

Chrome Dev for Desktop Update

The Dev channel has been updated to 136.0.7064.0 for Windows, Mac and Linux.

A partial list of changes is available in the Git log. Interested in switching release channels? Find out how. If you find a new issue, please let us know by filing a bug. The community help forum is also a great place to reach out for help or learn about common issues.

Chrome Release Team
Google Chrome

Deep Research and Gems in the Gemini app are now available for more Google Workspace customers

What’s changing 

Beginning today, we’re expanding the availability of Deep Research and Gems in the Gemini app to Google Workspace: 
  • Business Starter 
  • Enterprise Starter 
  • Education Fundamentals, Standard, and Plus 
  • Frontline Starter and Standard 
  • Essentials, Enterprise Essentials, and Enterprise Essentials Plus
  • Nonprofits 
Note: There is no change to Google Workspace or Education customers with access to Gemini Advanced already using Deep Research or Gems. 

Who’s impacted

Admins and end users


Why it matters

Gems are AI experts that you can customize across a variety of topics, helping you complete specific goals, tasks, and workflows based on your inputs, while reducing repetitive prompting. You can use Gems to gather target feedback on new products or services, get suggestions on your writing, brainstorm creative learning experiences and more. You can further customize your Gems by anchoring them to specific files, including Google Docs or Google Sheets via Drive, for even more relevant responses. 


You can also take advantage of a variety of our pre-made Gems to quickly get started, like “Sales pitch ideator” to create compelling pitch materials to drive conversions, “Copy creator” to draft on-brand marketing copy, “Learning coach” to build knowledge with step-by-step study guidance and practice activities, and “Sentiment analyzer” to dive into customer feedback and identify trends, and more.




Deep Research helps save hours of work by browsing the web on your behalf, analyzing information in real-time, and developing comprehensive research reports in minutes to get you up to speed on just about anything. You can use Deep Research to understand your business landscape with comprehensive reports on emerging trends in any industry or competitor products and services. It can also help educators and students 18+ with grant writing, lesson planning, class projects and more. 






Additional details

  • Currently, some features in Gems are only available in a limited set of languages. Refer to this article in our Help Center for more information: Gems in Gemini Apps.
  • Currently, Deep Research and Gems are limited to the Gemini web app (gemini.google.com) for Google Workspace business and education users 18 years and older. We’re planning to support Deep Research and Gems in the Gemini mobile app for these users at a later date.
  • Deep Research use is limited to five reports per user per 30 day period for the Google Workspace editions indicated in this post. For full usage of Deep Research, we recommend exploring Google Workspace business and education plans with access to Gemini Advanced. 

Getting started



Rollout pace


Availability

Available for Google Workspace:
  • Business Starter
  • Enterprise Starter
  • Education Standard, Plus, and Fundamentals
  • Frontline Starter and Standard
  • Essentials, Enterprise Essentials, and Enterprise Essentials Plus
  • Nonprofits

The Third Beta of Android 16

Posted by Matthew McCullough – VP of Product Management, Android Developer

Android 16 has officially reached Platform Stability today with Beta 3! That means the API surface is locked, the app-facing behaviors are final, and you can push your Android 16-targeted apps to the Play store right now. Read on for coverage of new security and accessibility features in Beta 3.

Android delivers enhancements and new features year-round, and your feedback on the Android beta program plays a key role in helping Android continuously improve. The Android 16 developer site has more information about the beta, including how to get it onto devices and the release timeline. We’re looking forward to hearing what you think, and thank you in advance for your continued help in making Android a platform that benefits everyone.

New in Android 16 Beta 3

At this late stage in the development cycle, there are only a few new things in the Android 16 Beta 3 release for you to consider when developing your apps.

Android 16 timeline showing we are on time with Beta releases ending in March

Broadcast audio support

Pixel 9 devices on Android 16 Beta now support Auracast broadcast audio with compatible LE Audio hearing aids, part of Android's work to enhance audio accessibility. Built on the LE Audio standard, Auracast enables compatible hearing aids and earbuds to receive direct audio streams from public venues like airports, concerts, and classrooms. Our Keyword post has more on this technology.

Outline text for maximum text contrast

Users with low vision often have reduced contrast sensitivity, making it challenging to distinguish objects from their backgrounds. To help these users, Android 16 Beta 3 introduces outline text, replacing high contrast text, which draws a larger contrasting area around text to greatly improve legibility.

Android 16 also contains new AccessibilityManager APIs to allow your apps to check or register a listener to see if this mode is enabled. This is primarily for UI Toolkits like Compose to offer a similar visual experience. If you maintain a UI Toolkit library or your app performs custom text rendering that bypasses the android.text.Layout class then you can use this to know when outline text is enabled.

Text with enhanced contrast before and after Android 16's new outline text accessibility feature
Text with enhanced contrast before and after Android 16's new outline text accessibility feature

Test your app with Local Network Protection

Android 16 Beta 3 adds the ability to test the Local Network Protection (LNP) feature which is planned for a future Android major release. It gives users more control over which apps can access devices on their local network.

What's Changing?

Currently, any app with the INTERNET permission can communicate with devices on the user's local network. LNP will eventually require apps to request a specific permission to access the local network.

Beta 3: Opt-In and Test

In Beta 3, LNP is an opt-in feature. This is your chance to test your app and identify any parts that rely on local network access. Use this adb command to enable LNP restrictions for your app:

adb shell am compat enable RESTRICT_LOCAL_NETWORK <your_package_name>

After rebooting your device, your app's local network access is restricted. Test features that might interact with local devices (e.g., device discovery, media casting, connecting to IoT devices). Expect to see socket errors like EPERM or ECONNABORTED if your app tries to access the local network without the necessary permission. See the developer guide for more information, including how to re-enable local network access.

This is a significant change, and we're committed to working with you to ensure a smooth transition. By testing and providing feedback now, you can help us build a more private and secure Android ecosystem.

Get your apps, libraries, tools, and game engines ready!

If you develop an SDK, library, tool, or game engine, it's even more important to prepare any necessary updates now to prevent your downstream app and game developers from being blocked by compatibility issues and allow them to target the latest SDK features. Please let your developers know if updates are needed to fully support Android 16.

Testing involves installing your production app or a test app making use of your library or engine using Google Play or other means onto a device or emulator running Android 16 Beta 3. Work through all your app's flows and look for functional or UI issues. Review the behavior changes to focus your testing. Each release of Android contains platform changes that improve privacy, security, and overall user experience, and these changes can affect your apps. Here are several changes to focus on that apply, even if you don't yet target Android 16:

    • JobScheduler: JobScheduler quotas are enforced more strictly in Android 16; enforcement will occur if a job executes while the app is on top, when a foreground service is running, or in the active standby bucket. setImportantWhileForeground is now a no-op. The new stop reason STOP_REASON_TIMEOUT_ABANDONED occurs when we detect that the app can no longer stop the job.
    • Broadcasts: Ordered broadcasts using priorities only work within the same process. Use other IPC if you need cross-process ordering.
    • ART: If you use reflection, JNI, or any other means to access Android internals, your app might break. This is never a best practice. Test thoroughly.
    • 16KB Page Size: If your app isn't 16KB-page-size ready, you can use the new compatibility mode flag, but we recommend migrating to 16KB for best performance.

Other changes that will be impactful once your app targets Android 16:

Remember to thoroughly exercise libraries and SDKs that your app is using during your compatibility testing. You may need to update to current SDK versions or reach out to the developer for help if you encounter any issues.

Once you’ve published the Android 16-compatible version of your app, you can start the process to update your app's targetSdkVersion. Review the behavior changes that apply when your app targets Android 16 and use the compatibility framework to help quickly detect issues.

Two Android API releases in 2025

This preview is for the next major release of Android with a planned launch in Q2 of 2025 and we plan to have another release with new developer APIs in Q4. This Q2 major release will be the only release in 2025 that includes behavior changes that could affect apps. The Q4 minor release will pick up feature updates, optimizations, and bug fixes; like our non-SDK quarterly releases, it will not include any intentional app-breaking behavior changes.

Android API release timeline 2025

We'll continue to have quarterly Android releases. The Q1 and Q3 updates provide incremental updates to ensure continuous quality. We’re putting additional energy into working with our device partners to bring the Q2 release to as many devices as possible.

There’s no change to the target API level requirements and the associated dates for apps in Google Play; our plans are for one annual requirement each year, tied to the major API level.

Get started with Android 16

You can enroll any supported Pixel device to get this and future Android Beta updates over-the-air. If you don’t have a Pixel device, you can use the 64-bit system images with the Android Emulator in Android Studio. If you are currently on Android 16 Beta 2 or are already in the Android Beta program, you will be offered an over-the-air update to Beta 3.

While the API and behaviors are final, we're still looking for your feedback so please report issues on the feedback page. The earlier we get your feedback, the better chance we'll be able to address it in this or a future release.

For the best development experience with Android 16, we recommend that you use the latest feature drop of Android Studio (Meerkat). Once you’re set up, here are some of the things you should do:

    • Compile against the new SDK, test in CI environments, and report any issues in our tracker on the feedback page.

We’ll update the beta system images and SDK regularly throughout the Android 16 release cycle. Once you’ve installed a beta build, you’ll automatically get future updates over-the-air for all later previews and Betas.

For complete information on Android 16 please visit the Android 16 developer site.