Google’s Media Actions Policy Updates: Auto-play on apps not necessary; play content with single, intuitive click

Google has been updating the media actions policy and it started to roll in from July 28, 2021. The search engine has been notifying all the media action partners by sending emails on the update of the policy of auto play in media actions that is going live on all platforms and devices.

Over the last few years, the online browsers and search engines have been adopting tougher autoplay restrictions in order to improve the user experience, reduce data consumption on expensive and/or limited networks, and eliminate incentives to use ad blocks. Users and publishers will have more control over playback with these improvements.

Google has been carefully crafting the content standards for Google Search to strike a balance between legitimate concerns about such issues and the necessity for a search engine to enable information access.

Take a look at the email that Google has shared with their media partners:

What is the actual change in Media actions?

Earlier, according to the Google’s Policy the media partners had to implement the autoplay policy in their applications. However, the autoplay policy has been removed, and you are no longer obliged to enable the autoplay option (except for Android TV Movie and TVepisode). One must, however, provide a mechanism for users to play the material with a single, straightforward click. Refer to the media actions devsite for further information on playback behaviour.

Now,

Every day, Google processes billions of queries. In fact, 15% of the queries we handle each day are ones we’ve never seen before. Google uses automation to deal with the massive volume of queries. Google utilises automation to find material on the internet and from other sources.

When it comes to policy-violating content, Google’s first line of defence is usually automation. The search engine methods are set up to prioritise the material that looks to be the most valuable and helpful on a certain subject. The Tech Giant systems are also programmed to not display information that is in violation of Google’s content policies. There is no such thing as a flawless system. If the search engine finds anything that violates policies, Google always try to fix it by enhancing automated systems.