A device may receive a request for a transmission of traffic from an application, the application being associated with an application identifier. The device may determine an application category of the application using the application identifier associated with the application. The device may identify a set of rules associated with the application category, where the set of rules includes at least one of one or more rules associated with foreground traffic, or one or more rules associated with background traffic. The device may selectively block or permit the transmission of traffic, from the application, based on the set of rules.