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Google Play Store starts autoplaying videos later this month

Autoplaying videos have dominated popular services like Facebook, Instagram, and even Google’s own services. Starting sometime this month, the Google Play Store will start using autoplay for app listing videos.

Detailed on a support page first spotted by XDA, Google is kicking off this new practice sometime during the month of September. Promotional videos hosted on YouTube for app listings will automatically start playing when a user visits that app’s page.

Unfortunately, Google doesn’t detail how the video will play including whether or not it will be silent or if the functionality can be disabled on mobile connections.

Google is pushing developers to prepare their promotional videos for this change, though. These promotional videos need to have monetization disabled and have no copyright claims in order to use autoplay on Google Play. The company explains that this requirement is designed to help avoid confusion from users in the case that a monetized video triggers an unrelated video ad. Monetization must be disabled by November 1st.

Developers with a video in their store listing must disable ads by November 1, 2019 to keep the video eligible to be shown on Google Play. This is because, beginning September 2019, Google Play will start autoplaying store listing videos to help more users discover your content at a glance. If those videos are monetized (that is, enabled for monetization on YouTube or containing copyrighted content with monetization claims), they may show ads, which can be confusing for users.

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