licensing terms-of-service safety
Is executing code from external server banned on Google Play?
<p><br />
I am creating a program that needs to download additional code and resources from external server. (Of course that code is safe).
<br />Is it illegal on Google Play?<br />
<br />
These additional assemblies will not be tested by Google. Could be my account or program banned? Will Google think, that I want to harm my users, or I am creating a virus?<br />
<br />
This program is created in Xamarin (C#) and I uses System.Reflection to load assemblies from downloaded DLL files.
<br />Thanks for help!</p>

<p>The law itself wouldn't specify what origin of code can be retrieved and then executed.</p>

<p>The terms of service of Google would be what would restrict you from doing this or not, including what consequences you would have if Google discovered this.</p>

<p>I can say that as a developer, I have created assemblies in C#, sent them to a server and my application downloaded them and executed them. In my case the assemblies were compiled from script code that the user created themselves and so they knew this was happening.</p>

<p>There is no law that dictates that a particular block of code must go through a vetting process by Google prior to running.</p>

<p>A quick check of Google's terms of service say that they do not allow this kind of updates. <a href="https://play.google.com/about/privacy-security-deception/malicious-behavior/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Here</a> is a quote:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>An app distributed via Google Play may not modify, replace, or update itself using any method other than Google Play’s update mechanism. Likewise, an app may not download executable code (e.g. dex, JAR, .so files) from a source other than Google Play. This restriction does not apply to code that runs in a virtual machine and has limited access to Android APIs (such as JavaScript in a webview or browser).</p>
</blockquote>
