Android app got suspended on Google Play Store on first publish [closed]

Question

I'm trying to publish my Android app on the Google Play store, but it got suspended due to a policy violation, specifically:

Issue: Violation of Webviews and Affiliate Spam policy
We don’t allow apps whose primary purpose is to drive affiliate traffic to a website or provide a webview of a website without permission from the website owner or administrator.

A bit of information about my app:

• this is the first time I'm publishing the app, it was never published before
• i stated in the description that it is the official app for my website, also providing a link to it
• it's a hybrid app, built using Cordova and Angular, which I created from scratch forking my website's codebase and making some changes
• it is indeed a WebView, but the website's codebase has been completely repackaged into the app, and there's no direct link to the website

So my questions are: where do you think the actual root cause of the issue is, and what would be the best course of action for me to have my app published? As far as I can see I have these options available:

1. Republish the app with a different package and app names, but if that gets suspended again, I'm worried about losing my developer account permanently
2. File an appeal, and provide proof of ownership of the website (if that's even the root cause), although they don't specify what kind of proof they might be looking for. I have a print of Google Search console domain verification, and several screenshot from my hosting dashboard on Firebase, but I wonder if that's acceptable proof of ownership

Thanks for any advice, I'm fairly new to publishing apps and I'm worried about doing it the wrong way, or worse, getting my account permanently deleted.

Answer 1

Anyone can do the same for your site and publish an app. I got my app suspended some time ago too since I hadn't gone through the policy of webview. You have the solution with you

File an appeal, and provide proof of ownership of the website (if that's even the root cause), although they don't specify what kind of proof they might be looking for. I have a print of Google Search console domain verification, and several screenshots from my hosting dashboard on Firebase, but I wonder if that's acceptable proof of ownership

This way, Google will be able to realize that you are not an affiliate trying to make more income by redirecting users to a certain link for accessing the website