Azernews.Az

By Bloomberg

Google Inc. unveiled a new ratings system and approval process for its Android store, seeking to reassure parents about what’s available on their children’s smartphones.

The Web company rolled out new age-based ratings for applications and games on Tuesday, tailored for regional tastes around the world, Purnima Kochikar, director of business development for the Google Play app store, said in an interview. The company will also begin using a team of human experts -- rather than just software -- to review submissions before they’re allowed in the store.

The Mountain View, California-based company, facing rivals such as Apple Inc., is trying to lure more parents and children to its services and devices. Google last month announced the release of a YouTube application designed for children, with age-appropriate videos, channels and playlists.

The new Android app-approval process has been running for several months, Kochikar said.

Under the revised system, Google will work with the International Age Rating Coalition to give developers a questionnaire that will assign a label appropriate to the region where the content is accessed, according to Eunice Kim, product manager for Google Play. The information will include information about what sensitive content the app might contain, such as nudity, profanity or alcohol references, she said.

What’s Appropriate?

For example, a news app with nudity might get a more lenient rating in Brazil or Germany than in the U.S., where such material is deemed inappropriate for more mainstream news services. Developers previously assigned their own ratings.

“People have very different ideas about what’s appropriate,” Kim said. “We didn’t feel like we were doing a good enough job today really addressing and being culturally sensitive to those different user needs.”

Google Play, known for faster approval times than Apple’s App Store, is telling developers that they will see no significant time difference under the new system of using human evaluators, Kochikar said.

“We are realizing that it’s been an effective way of catching the violations early and making the store better for users and developers,” she said. “The things that we are catching are the same as before; it’s just that we’re catching them faster.”