Not so sweet: Google responds to ‘sugar daddy’ Play Store app ban

On top of a handful of precise legal refinements and advertising ID tweaks, Google included a bombshell for a certain dating crowd with its most recent set of changes to Play policies. In other words, Google has updated its offensive content policy to prohibit “compensated sexual relationships,” which essentially means dating apps that exchange money for sex.

As I said earlier, I wasn’t exactly aware of the existence of sugar daddy dating applications, but apparently, they exist in the digital age as well. Based on my research, the various apps I’ve come across that would likely be fitting into that category have over a million total downloads (which is just a few). While the majority have an unexpectedly high rating, the overall quality of the reviews sometimes suggests that reviews are being adjusted. A significant portion of users, however, are certainly still using these apps.

To put it another way, a “sugar daddy” is a type of caramel candy with a stick on which there is a large quantity of sugar. A sugar daddy is simply a man that spends or gives the money in a transactional relationship, often for sexual favors.

I don’t judge, everyone has different tastes, and if everyone involved agrees to it willingly, there is no reason for something like that to cause harm. However, Google claims that it doesn’t care, although the company is specific about the fact that the main motivation for many of their customers who are using general dating apps like Tinder and Hinge, as well as many of the messages that even mainstream dating app users exchange, is compensation-based sexual relationships.

When we asked Google for a comment, we received the following response:

“As a platform we are always excited to support our developer partners, but we also work hard to provide a safe experience for users. We have updated our inappropriate content policy to prohibit apps that facilitate sexual acts in exchange for compensation following feedback we received from NGOs, governments, and other user advocacy groups concerned with user safety. This aligns our policies with other Google policies and industry norms.”

Google Play Support