I got this email today:

Thanks for using Google+ plugins. We have recently become aware that your use of these features violates one or more of our policies. Common issues and related policies include:

incorrect branding
misleading user flows
Please review these policies and update your implementation (project id 1015558766067). Feel free to post to the Google+ Developer community if you have a question about your implementation. We'll do our best to reply to your post as soon as possible.

We'll review again in 7 days. If you don't comply with these policies and terms of service, we may take action against your site. You will be notified of any action to your site.

The only Developer-thing I'm using on any of my sites is +Daniel Treadwell's G+ Blog plugin from http://gpb.minimali.se/google+blog/ on my personal blog – I'm using it primarily to archive my G+ Posts to my personal blog https://www.jonathonbarton.net – which is my 'archive of record', independent of any other service (LiveJournal, Blogger, and now, G+), and has been for 12 years. 

Shed some more light on this, please? 
I don't allow Sign In With Google, so it's not a button issue…I'm more than a little confused.

The Google+ musings of Daniel Treadwell
Google+ Blog Concept – Daniel Treadwell. View your Google+ Posts in the form of a clean and simple blog. Also home of the Google+Blog WordPress plugin.

10 thoughts on “I got this email today:”

  1. Also interested in the response to this. I wonder if it's to do with the row of "share" buttons. And that the G+ button launches the mobile share URL in a popup window.

    See https://developers.google.com/+/web/share/#sharelink

    Looks like you're using the WordPress sharedaddy plugin. This is deprecated and replaced by a function in Jetpack. Looking at that, it also seems to be using old and deprecated Google + branding. If this is the problem Google is complaining about in the email, there's going to be a LOT of blogs breaking the rules.

  2. Hi +Jonathon Barton, apologies for the slow response.  You are correct that the problem lies with the branding and the fact that Jetpack uses a +1 button to initiate a share.

    I've been looking into this to see if there is an option within Jetpack which would allow you to be compliant with our policies.  However, it looks as though that is not possible with the plugin as it currently stands.  I can only recommend that you disable the Google+ share widget in Jetpack or use an alternative plugin.

  3. +Lee Denison I can only suggest that Google reach out to WordPress and Automattic and sort this out. Jetpack has been downloaded 6,015,518 times and is in very wide us on WordPress sites.

    It shouldn't be the individual site's responsibility to make sure the branding works for everybody when it can be fixed once centrally.

  4. Thanks for the suggestion Julian and I appreciate you taking the time to raise the issue with the Jetpack developers.  I agree that fixing the problem centrally is the ideal solution so that all users benefit.

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