App rejection on android play store - advertising ID

[pliablepixels]

(phone gap plugin version 2.1.3, platform Android)

Hi, my android app suddenly got pulled down (after several years on the store) with this:

I was pretty sure I did nothing with the advertising ID. Upon further investigation, it looks like this plugin uses firebase SDK which in turn seems to collect that ID. I see the irony with Google kicking my app out because I used their library.

If you think appropriate, you may want to add a notice in your README.md encouraging uses to add a privacy policy to their store listing and their app if they use this plugin. I think these conditions are being scrutinized more closely due to GDPR compliance.

(not quite related to https://github.com/phonegap/phonegap-plugin-push/issues/778 as that deals with different libraries and for iOS)

[lamuertepeluda]

All of a sudden I'm facing the same issue. If you don't need the advertising ID (like me: I didn't even know what it was), then you may disable it.

It would be nice to have an option that does that for both platforms (iOS and Android). I will arrange some hook-based solution for now, and I will share it here if it works, but an option in the cordova manifest preferences for this plugin would be nice.

References on disabling the Android ID:

• https://github.com/arnesson/cordova-plugin-firebase/issues/862
• https://firebase.google.com/support/guides/disable-analytics

[jcesarmobile]

I would vote for documenting how to disable it by adding this line to the AndroidManifest.xml with a edit-config tag <meta-data android:name="google_analytics_adid_collection_enabled" android:value="false" />, as making the plugin disable it by default might cause problems with other plugins requiring it to properly work.

[pliablepixels]

This would need to be done for both Android and Ios. It seems firebase collects for both platforms. Apple always asks if our app collects the advertising id. It's a matter of time before Apple starts booting apps.

[lamuertepeluda]

I would vote for documenting how to disable it by adding this line to the AndroidManifest.xml with a edit-config tag <meta-data android:name="google_analytics_adid_collection_enabled" android:value="false" />, as making the plugin disable it by default might cause problems with other plugins requiring it to properly work.

Indeed, I'm trying this with

        <config-file parent="/manifest/application" target="AndroidManifest.xml">
            <meta-data android:name="google_analytics_adid_collection_enabled" android:value="false" />
            <meta-data android:name="firebase_crash_collection_enabled" android:value="false" />
        </config-file>

in the app config.xml file.

I've set it up for Android, under <platform name="ios">. So far it seems affecting the Manifest.xml as expected. I will let u know if this solution works for Google...

For iOS, I'm trying with

        <edit-config overwrite="true" parent="FIREBASE_ANALYTICS_COLLECTION_DEACTIVATED" platform="ios" target="*-Info.plist">
            <boolean>YES</boolean>
        </edit-config>

under <platform name="ios">. Hope it works as well...

[drago-aca]

please let us know if it works..

[pliablepixels]

Thanks @lamuertepeluda. My app got put back the moment I linked a privacy policy with a lame comment about firebase collecting IDs. That being said, I'll incorporate your changes. I don't do anything with the ad id and Apple's policies are are even stricter - you can't collect the ad id if you don't do anything with it.

[lamuertepeluda]

@pliablepixels we neither... we got knowledge of the existence of this Advertising ID the moment our app was rejected! 😞 I hope this works... stay tuned

[pliablepixels]

Interestingly, it looks like on iOS the flag was already disabled (and explains why my .ipa file passed iTunes checks). So not 100% sure we need the iOS flags but no harm in being safe.

find . | xargs fgrep FIREBASE_ANALYTICS_COLLECTION_DEACTIVATED 2>/dev/null
Binary file ./platforms/ios/zmNinja.xcarchive/Products/Applications/zmNinja.app/zmNinja matches
Binary file ./platforms/ios/Pods/FirebaseCore/Frameworks/FirebaseCore.framework/FirebaseCore matches

Further observation: I use FCM for push notifications. It looks like this is the contents of GoogleService-Info.plist in my project root:

 <key>IS_ADS_ENABLED</key>
 <true></true>
 <key>IS_ANALYTICS_ENABLED</key>
 <false></false>

I wonder if we need to turn off IS_ADS_ENABLED

[lamuertepeluda]

Guys the edit-config approach did work for Google! I re-submitted our app and after 1h or so it was back in the play store. I hope they won't rejected it again.

I'll let you know if it works for iOS as well, but thanks @pliablepixels for your investigation!

[mrhyper]

    <config-file parent="/manifest/application" target="AndroidManifest.xml">
        <meta-data android:name="google_analytics_adid_collection_enabled" android:value="false" />
        <meta-data android:name="firebase_crash_collection_enabled" android:value="false" />
    </config-file>

in the app `config.xml` file.

I can't compile my app with those settings, I get this error: Error parsing XML: unbound prefix

[GabrielArakaki]

@mrhyper , don't have much information of your environment settings, but if you're working on cordova-android 7.x.x., the relative path to AndroidManifest.xml has changed.

So you should change the target in the config-file, such as:

<config-file parent="/manifest/application" target="app/src/main/AndroidManifest.xml">
        <meta-data android:name="google_analytics_adid_collection_enabled" android:value="false" />
        <meta-data android:name="firebase_crash_collection_enabled" android:value="false" />
</config-file>

@see https://cordova.apache.org/announcements/2017/12/04/cordova-android-7.0.0.html

[Charlie-Hua]

@mrhyper adding an attribute to the root <widget> fixed the Error parsing XML: unbound prefix error for me. from this comment: https://github.com/dpa99c/cordova-custom-config/issues/24#issuecomment-172981002

[touletan]

I added this code below to config.xml and successfully build the APK using phonegap build. I submitted the apps on Google and it has been active for few hours. Not the apps has been removed again for the same reason :) Is it still working for you?

`

    <meta-data android:name="firebase_crash_collection_enabled" android:value="false" />

`

[jdtaylor91]

@touletan we also added the same snippet to our config.xml and the app was removed for the same reason a few hours later. Did you find another work around for this?

We confirmed that the generated AndroidManifest.xml file contains both the google_analytics_adid_collection_enabled and firebase_crash_collection_enabled settings so we don't think it's a configuration issue.

[touletan]

@jdtaylor91 , I added a privacy policy to my app.

[jdtaylor91]

@touletan OK thanks. We've had to go down this route as well unfortunately!

[digaus]

@mrhyper , don't have much information of your environment settings, but if you're working on cordova-android 7.x.x., the relative path to AndroidManifest.xml has changed.

So you should change the target in the config-file, such as:

<config-file parent="/manifest/application" target="app/src/main/AndroidManifest.xml">
        <meta-data android:name="google_analytics_adid_collection_enabled" android:value="false" />
        <meta-data android:name="firebase_crash_collection_enabled" android:value="false" />
</config-file>

@see https://cordova.apache.org/announcements/2017/12/04/cordova-android-7.0.0.html

Ty this worked perfectly. My last release is now active since ~5 days! This should be added in the documentation.

[tmladek]

I added this code below to config.xml and successfully build the APK using phonegap build. I submitted the apps on Google and it has been active for few hours. Not the apps has been removed again for the same reason :) Is it still working for you?

<config-file parent="/manifest/application" target="app/src/main/AndroidManifest.xml"> <meta-data android:name="google_analytics_adid_collection_enabled" android:value="false" /> <meta-data android:name="firebase_crash_collection_enabled" android:value="false" /> </config-file>

I added this into my config.xml, but then my handler stopped getting called?

Registration and getting the ID worked fine, but no notification would ever trigger the "notifications" event again. I had to remove this from the config, completely delete all artifacts and cache and rebuild to fix this - which obviously isn't ideal, as now my app is getting rejected again.

Any news regarding this issue?