Posted by Tatiana van Maaren – Global T&S Partnerships Lead, Privacy & Security, and Roxanna Aliabadi Walker – Product Manager

At Google Play, we're dedicated to building user trust, especially when it comes to sensitive permissions and your data. We understand that managing files and media permissions can be confusing, and users often worry about which files apps can access. Since these files often contain sensitive information like family photos or financial documents, it's crucial that users feel in control. That’s why we're working to provide clearer choices, so users can confidently grant permissions without sacrificing app functionality or their privacy.

Below are a set of best practices to consider for improving user trust in the sharing of broad access files, ultimately leading to a more successful and sustainable app ecosystem.

Prioritize user privacy with data minimization

Building user trust starts with requesting only the permissions essential for your app's core functions. We understand that photos and videos are sensitive data, and broad access increases security risks. That's why Google Play now restricts READ_MEDIA_IMAGES and READ_MEDIA_VIDEO permissions, allowing developers to request them only when absolutely necessary, typically for apps like photo/video managers and galleries.

Leverage privacy-friendly solutions

Instead of requesting broad storage access, we encourage developers to use the Android Photo Picker, introduced in Android 13. This tool offers a privacy-centric way for users to select specific media files without granting access to their entire library. Android photo picker provides an intuitive interface, including access to cloud-backed photos and videos, and allows for customization to fit your app's needs. In addition, this system picker is backported to Android 4.4, ensuring a consistent experience for all users. By eliminating runtime permissions, Android photo picker simplifies the user experience and builds trust through transparency.

Build trust through transparent data practices

We understand that some developers have historically used custom photo pickers for tailored user experiences. However, regardless of whether you use a custom or system picker, transparency with users is crucial. Users want to know why your app needs access to their photos and videos.

Developers should strive to provide clear and concise explanations within their apps, ideally at the point where the permission is requested. Take the following in consideration while crafting your permission request mechanisms as possible best practices guidelines:

• When requesting media access, provide clear explanations within your app. Specifically, tell users which media your app needs (e.g., all photos, profile pictures, sharing videos) and explain the functionality that relies on it (e.g., 'To choose a profile picture,' 'To share videos with friends').
• Clearly outline how user data will be used and protected in your privacy policies. Explain whether data is stored locally, transmitted to a server, or shared with third parties. Reassure users that their data will be handled responsibly and securely.

Learn how Snap has embraced the Android System Picker to prioritize user privacy and streamline their media selection experience. Here's what they have to say about their implementation:

“One of our goals is to provide a seamless and intuitive communication experience while ensuring Snapchatters have control over their content. The new flow of the Android Photo Picker is the perfect balance of providing user control of the content they want to share while ensuring fast communication with friends on Snapchat.”

– Marc Brown, Product Manager

Get started

Start building a more trustworthy app experience. Explore the Android Photo Picker and implement privacy-first data practices today.

Acknowledgement

Special thanks to: May Smith – Product Manager, and Anita Issagholyan – Senior Policy Specialist

Posted by JJ Zou – Product Manager, and Scott Lin – Product Manager

At Google Play, we're committed to empowering you with the tools and resources you need to build successful and secure apps that users can rely on. That's why we're introducing a new way to recognize VPN apps that go above and beyond to protect their users: a "Verified" badge for consumer-facing VPN apps.

This new badge is designed to highlight apps that prioritize user privacy and safety, help users make more informed choices about the VPN apps they use, and build confidence in the apps they ultimately download. This badge complements existing features such as the Google Play Store banner for VPNs and Data Safety section declaration in the Play Store.

Build user trust with more transparency

Earning the VPN badge isn't just about checking a box— it's proof that your VPN app invests in app safety. This badge signifies that your app has gone above and beyond, adhering to the Play safety and security guidelines and successfully completed a Mobile Application Security Assessment (MASA) Level 2 validation.

The VPN badge helps your app stand out in a crowded marketplace. Once awarded, the badge is prominently displayed on your app’s details page and in search results. Additionally, we have built new surfaces to showcase verified VPN applications.

Demonstrating commitment to security and safety

We're excited to share insights from some of our partners who have already earned the VPN badge and are leading the way in building a safe and trusted Google Play ecosystem. Learn how partners like Nord, hide.me, and Aloha are using the badge and implementing best practices for user security:

Nord

“We’re excited that the new ‘Verified’ badge will help users easily identify VPNs that meet high standards for security and privacy. In a market where trust is key, this badge not only provides reassurance to customers, but also highlights the integrity of developers committed to delivering secure and reliable products.”

hide.me

“Privacy and user safety are fundamental to our VPN's architecture. The MASA program has been valuable in validating our security practices and maintaining high standards. This accreditation provides independent verification of our commitment to protecting user privacy.”

Aloha Browser

“The certification process is well-organized and accessible to any company. If your product is developed with security as a core focus, passing the required audits should not pose any difficulty. We regularly conduct third-party audits and have been active participants in the MASA program since its inception. Additionally, it fosters discipline in your development practices, knowing that regular re-certification is required. Ultimately, it’s the end user who benefits the most—a secure and satisfied user is the ultimate goal for every app developer.”

Getting your App Badge-Ready

To take advantage of this opportunity to enhance your app's profile and attract more users, learn more about the specific criteria and start the validation process today.

To be considered for the "Verified" badge, your VPN app needs to:

• Complete a Mobile Application Security Assessment (MASA) Level 2 validation
• Have an Organization developer account type
• Meet target API level requirements for Google Play apps
• Have at least 10,000 installs and 250 reviews
• Be published on Google Play for at least 90 days
• Submit a Data Safety section declaration, opting into:
• Independent security review, under ‘Additional badges’
• Encryption in transit

Note: This list is not exhaustive and doesn't fully represent all the criteria used to display the badge. While other factors contribute to the evaluation, fulfilling these requirements significantly increases your chances of seeing your VPN app “Verified.”

Join us in our mission to create a safer and more transparent Google Play ecosystem. We're here to support you with the tools and resources you need to build trusted apps.

Source: Android Developers Blog

Posted by Paul Feng – Vice President of Engineering, Product and UX, Google Play

Our annual Playtime event series kicks off this week and we’re excited to share the latest product updates to help your business thrive. We’re sharing new ways to grow your audience, optimize revenue, and protect your business in an ever-evolving digital landscape.

Make sure to also check out news from #TheAndroidShow to learn more about the biggest update to Gemini in Android Studio since launch that will help boost your team’s developer productivity.

Growing your audience with enhanced discovery features

To help people discover apps and games they'll love, we're continuously improving our tools and personalizing app discovery so you can reach and engage your ideal audience.

Enhanced content formats: To make your video content more impactful, we’re making enhancements to how it's displayed on the Play Store. Portrait videos on your store listing now have a full-screen experience to immerse users and drive conversions with a prominent "install" button. Simply keep creating amazing portrait videos for your store listing, and we'll handle the rest.

Our early results are promising: portrait videos drive +7% increase in total watch time, a +9% increase in video completion count, and a +5% increase in conversions.

Captivate users with full-screen portrait videos on your store listing

We’ve also launched new features to create a more engaging and tailored experience for people exploring the Play Store.

• Personalized query recommendations: To help users start their search journeys right, we’ve introduced personalized search query recommendations on Search Home. This feature is currently available in English, with expanded support for more languages coming soon this year.

Personalized search queries help tailor search results to user’s interests

• Interest pickers: Multi-select interest filters allow people to share their preferences so they can get more helpful recommendations tailored to their interests. Earlier this year, we announced this for games, and now these filters are also available for apps.

Optimizing your revenue with Google Play Commerce

We want to make it effortless for people to buy what you're selling, so we're focused on helping our 2.5 billion users in over 190 markets have a seamless and secure purchase experience. Our tools support you and your users during every step of the journey, from payment setup, to the purchase flow, to ensuring transactions are secure and compliant.

Proactive payment setup: To help more buyers be purchase ready, we’ve been proactively encouraging people to set up payment methods in advance, both within the Play Store and during Android device setup, and even during Google account creation. Our efforts have doubled the number of purchase-ready users this year, now reaching over half a billion users. And we’re already seeing results from this approach - In September alone, we’ve seen an almost 3% increase in global conversion rates, which means more people are completing purchases, which translates directly to higher revenue potential for you from your apps and games.

Expanded payment options: Google Play already offers users over 300 local payment methods across 65+ markets, and we’re regularly adding new payment methods. US users can now use Cash App eWallet alongside credit cards, PayPal, direct carrier billing, and gift cards and users in Poland can pay with Blik Banking.

Purchase flow recommendations: Our new algorithmic recommendation engine helps people discover relevant in-app purchases they’re likely to buy. Simply select products to feature in Play Console, and we'll recommend a popular or related option at different moments in the purchase journey, helping users find what they need. Our early results show an average of 3% increase in spend.

Purchase flow recommendations helps people discover relevant in-app purchases

Cart abandonment reminders: If a user is browsing a product in your app or game, but hasn’t yet made a decision to purchase, we’ll remind them about it later when they browse the Play Store. These automatic, opt-out reminders help nudge users to complete their purchase.

Cart abandonment reminders help users complete their purchase

Secure bio authentication: Users can now enjoy a faster and more secure checkout experience by choosing on-device biometrics (fingerprint or face recognition) to verify their purchases, eliminating the need to enter their account password. This year, we’ve seen adoption triple, as more users choose bioauth to make their first purchase.

Protecting your business with the Play Integrity API

Everything we do at Google Play has safety and security at its core. That’s why we’re continuing to invest in more ways to reinforce user trust, protect your business, and safeguard the ecosystem. This includes actively combating bad actors who try to deceive users or spread malware, and giving you tools to combat abuse.

The Play Integrity API can help you detect and respond to potential abuse such as fraud, bots, cheating, or data theft, ensuring everyone experiences your apps and games as intended. Apps that use Play Integrity features are seeing 80% less unauthorized usage on average compared to unprotected apps.

Here's what's new with the Play Integrity API:

• Hardware-backed security signals: In the coming months, you can opt-in to improved Play Integrity API verdicts backed by hardware security and other signals on Android 13+ devices. This means faster, more reliable, and more privacy-friendly app and device verification, making it significantly harder and more costly for attackers to bypass.
• New app access risk feature: Now out of beta, this feature allows you to detect and respond to apps that can capture the screen or control the device, so you can protect your users from scams or malicious activity.

Those are the latest updates from Google Play! We're always enhancing our tools to help address the specific challenges and opportunities of different app categories, from games and media to entertainment and social.

We're excited to see how you leverage both our new and existing features to grow your business. Check out how Spotify and SuperPlay are already taking advantage of features like Play Points and Collections to achieve powerful results:

Posted by Cullen Rotroff, Product Manager, Google Play

Over the past year, the Play Store has evolved into a dynamic discovery engine for your apps and their amazing content. We continue to invest in features that connect the best app experiences to the people who love them. At this year’s Google I/O, we teased an exciting new on-device surface that expands the discovery of your content beyond the Play Store, powered by Engage SDK.

Today, we’re excited to announce that this brand-new surface is ready for the spotlight. Introducing Collections: a seamless way to showcase personalized content and guide users on continuous journeys that lead directly into your app.

Expand your app's reach beyond the Play Store

Collections is a full-screen immersive space that automatically organizes the best and most relevant content from installed apps into intent-oriented spaces, such as Watch, Listen, Shop, or Social. From there, users deep-link directly into your app to complete their journey, whether that’s to enjoy your content or complete a purchase.

You can use this surface to highlight your most important content, including personalized recommendations and promotions. If a user has your app installed but isn’t logged in, Collections can encourage the user to sign in to see your most personalized content. Plus, if your app is integrated but not installed, Collections can recommend to users to install it.

Users enter Collections through a Play Store widget. Without needing to install a new app, users can simply preview the experience in the Play Store and then add the widget to their home screen.

Collections is a full-screen immersive space that automatically organizes the best and most relevant content from installed apps

Engage users with personalized and customizable messaging

There are multiple ways to use Collections to engage users.

Continuation journeys are the anchor of this experience and appear at the top of most spaces to help users resume their journeys with a tap. For example:

• In Shop, users can pick up an abandoned shopping cart.
• In Listen, users can jump back into a recently played album, playlist, podcast, audiobook, or live radio station.
• And in Food, users can pick up an open cart or reorder a recent meal.

We also understand that developers know their users best, so to give you more control over the Collections experience, you can create up-to-five recommendation clusters. These clusters can be personalized based on your user’s behavior in your app and organized by theme, like new releases, price drops, or the user’s favorite topics. For users who aren’t logged in to your app, you can provide content with broad appeal to spur a new session.

Engage users through continuation journeys (like "Continue listening") or with recommendation clusters (like "Today's top hits")

Finally, Collections spotlights hero content in its featured cluster, a larger, more premium UI template. You can display one personalized featured card per user and update it dynamically throughout the day. The featured cluster is best reserved for top personalized promotions and deals, for example:

• Promote memberships and special business models, like a loyalty program.
• Highlight your best personalized deals.
• Announce new products and app features.

Collections’ featured cluster spotlights your hero content

Get started with Engage SDK

To start using Collections, you'll need to integrate with Engage SDK, a client-side integration that leverages on-device APIs and takes most developers about a week to complete. Designed to be simple and lightweight, the integration adds less than 50 KB to the average app APK.

Engage SDK enables your apps to push personalized app content to Collections. There is no need to start and maintain a new content strategy as the integration is designed for the personalized content from your app’s front page. Since you already have the content strategy, metadata, and personalization required, all you’ll need to do is publish it with Engage SDK.

Today, we’re inviting all apps with users in the United States and content in our supported categories – Watch, Listen, Read, Shop, Food, Social, Travel & Events, Health & Fitness, Dating – to join. Over 35 top apps have already integrated with Engage SDK, including Adidas, Amazon Prime Video, Audible, Best Buy, iHeartRadio, Nextdoor, Spotify, Shopify, and Walmart.

Visit our Engage SDK integration guide to see if your app meets the eligibility and on requirements, and express your interest.

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Posted by Nick Sharma – Product Manager, Google Play

At Google Play, we’re passionate about helping people discover experiences they’ll love while empowering developers like you to bring your ideas to life and build successful businesses. At this year’s Google I/O, we shared our latest developments that will help you acquire and engage users, optimize your revenue, and reinforce trust with secure, high-quality experiences.

If you missed this year’s event, check out our recap video below, or read on for our top 3 announcements.

#1: Enhanced store listings: More ways to reach the right audience

Your store listing is often your first chance to make a good impression and acquire new users. You can already tailor your store listing in a number of ways to optimize your conversions for different audiences.

• Now, you can also create listings based on what users search for. Tailoring your store listings by search keywords will not only make listing content more relevant, it can also help you target users actively seeking the benefits your app provides.

• Not sure what keywords to choose? Play Console will now give you keyword suggestions for potentially impactful store listings.

Increase your store listing's relevance and conversions by displaying content tailored to users by search keywords

#2: Expanded payment options: More ways for customers to pay for your content

Our extensive payment method library, which includes traditional payment methods like credit cards and over 300 local forms of payment in more than 65 markets, continues to grow.

• We enabled Pix in Brazil, allowing you to offer millions of customers their preferred payment method.

• We also enhanced support for UPI in India to streamline subscription purchases.

• With our new installment subscriptions feature, you can offer customers the option to pay over time for long-term subscriptions, helping increase your signups and lifetime value.

Installment subscriptions are now available for users in Brazil, France, Italy, and Spain

#3: SDK Console improvements: Build high-quality and safer app experiences

We're making it easier to build high-quality and safer app experiences with enhancements made possible by SDK Console.

• You can now get better guidance on how to fix crashes or errors in Android Studio and receive notifications from SDK owners about non-compliant versions in Play Console.

• Plus, you can share crash or ANR data with SDK owners directly through Play Console.

Developers can now share crash or ANR data with SDK owners in Play Console

That’s it for our top 3 announcements, there’s so much more to discover from this year’s event. Check out this blog post for more Google Play announcements at this year’s Google I/O.