Google has begun reaching out to developers asking them to declare if their apps include ads, a move that has extended last year’s Designed for Families ad-labelling initiative to all Google Play app download pages. After January 11, 2016, developers will no longer be able to make updates to their apps unless they have completed the ad declaration.

With this added transparency for ads within Android apps, some developers and companies have begun seeing the following notice when uploading new versions.  

What is Admob? It’s Google’s ad API.  It can be added into a project specifically by including it in the build.gradle (Android Studio):

‘com.google.android.gms:play-services-ads:8.3.0’

It can also be added unintentionally, which is likely the case if you’ve received the above notice after declaring that your app doesn’t have ads:

‘com.google.android.gms:play-services:8.3.0’

The line above will add all the Google Play services to your project, including Admob.  With the release of Google Play services 6.5, developers were finally able to pick and choose which libraries were added to the project in an attempt to help large apps stay under the method limit of 65k.

However, for some developers, the method limit is not an issue, and for sake of ease, the entire Google Play service was added into the project. And that’s where the issue lies.
With the declaration of ads in an app now being required, developers will have to ensure they are only adding the correct API into their project.

More information on setting up Google Play Services can be found here.