A News app is an app that:
- Declares itself as a 'News' app in the Google Play Console, or
- Lists itself within the 'News and magazine' category on the Google Play Store and describes itself as 'news' in its app title, icon, developer name or description.
Examples of apps within the 'News and magazine' category that qualify as News apps:
- Apps that describe themselves as 'news' in app descriptions, including but not limited to:
- Latest news
- Newspaper
- Breaking news
- Local news
- Daily news
- Apps with the word 'News' in app titles, icons or developer name.
However, if apps contain primarily user-generated content (for example, social media apps), they should not declare themselves as News apps, and are not considered to be News apps.
News apps that require a user to purchase a membership must provide an in-app content preview for users prior to purchase.
News apps must:
- Provide ownership information about the app and the source of news articles including, but not limited to, the original publisher or author of each article. In cases where it is not customary to list individual authors for articles, the news app must be the original publisher of the articles. Please note that links to social media accounts are not sufficient forms of author or publisher information.
- Have a dedicated website or in-app page that is clearly labelled as containing contact information, is easy to find (for example, linked at the bottom of the home page or in the site navigation bar), and provides valid contact information for the news publisher, including either a contact email address or a phone number. Please note that links to social media accounts are not sufficient forms of publisher contact information.
News apps must not:
- Contain significant spelling and/or grammatical errors,
- Contain only static content (for example, content that is more than three months old), or
- Have affiliate marketing or ad revenue as its primary purpose.
Please note that News apps may use ads and other forms of marketing to monetise as long as the app’s primary purpose isn’t to sell products and services or generate advertising revenue.
News apps that aggregate content from different publishing sources must be transparent about the publishing source of the content in the app and each of the sources must meet News policy requirements.
Please consult this article for how best to provide required information.