android - Violation of section 4.3 of the Developer Distribution Agreement

Question

I just received from play store a notice stating that one of my apps did not comply with violation of section 4.3 :

4.3 You agree that if you use the Market to distribute Products, you will protect the privacy and legal rights of users. If the users provide you with, or your Product accesses or uses, user names, passwords, or other login information or personal information, you must make the users aware that the information will be available to your Product, and you must provide legally adequate privacy notice and protection for those users. Further, your Product may only use that information for the limited purposes for which the user has given you permission to do so. If your Product stores personal or sensitive information provided by users, it must do so securely and only for as long as it is needed. But if the user has opted into a separate agreement with you that allows you or your Product to store or use personal or sensitive information directly related to your Product (not including other products or applications) then the terms of that separate agreement will govern your use of such information. If the user provides your Product with Google Account information, your Product may only use that information to access the user's Google Account when, and for the limited purposes for which, the user has given you permission to do so.

In the app i have this permissions:

android.permission.INTERNET
android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE
android.permission.GET_ACCOUNTS
android.permission.READ_PHONE_STATE
android.permission.SEND_SMS
android.permission.RECEIVE_SMS

So my 2 questions are:

• which of this permissions i have to remove to comply with the terms and agreements?

• if i remove just this permissions (the lines above), then my app will comply? or are there still other things i need to remove? (I am not an expert)

Answer 1

You need to discuss this with Google.

From the way I read that message, simplying removing permissions will not fix the problem- it isn't the fact that you are using permissions, it is how you are using them.

you must provide legally adequate privacy notice

Do you have a privacy policy URL set for your app in the Play Store?

Further, your Product may only use that information for the limited purposes for which the user has given you permission to do so.

How are you using your user's information? It is possible that a user reported your app for violating his/her privacy.

In any case, we will not be of much help here, as we cannot tell you what caused Google to send you that message.