diff --git a/assembly/pom.xml b/assembly/pom.xml
index 22cbac06cad6198b18e3f09ef616e5f7f55b0c53..75ac9262cbae55bd46346d195f7eff8ce614c7b6 100644
--- a/assembly/pom.xml
+++ b/assembly/pom.xml
@@ -38,6 +38,13 @@
   </properties>
 
   <dependencies>
+    <!-- Prevent our dummy JAR from being included in Spark distributions or uploaded to YARN -->
+    <dependency>
+      <groupId>org.spark-project.spark</groupId>
+      <artifactId>unused</artifactId>
+      <version>1.0.0</version>
+      <scope>provided</scope>
+    </dependency>
     <dependency>
       <groupId>org.apache.spark</groupId>
       <artifactId>spark-core_${scala.binary.version}</artifactId>
diff --git a/examples/pom.xml b/examples/pom.xml
index 43f3d2e4de8635342a783916917a0e43c3fe3812..4423d0fbe1df38e98b2bf8c1bbe62fe994fa1644 100644
--- a/examples/pom.xml
+++ b/examples/pom.xml
@@ -42,6 +42,13 @@
   </properties>
 
   <dependencies>
+    <!-- Prevent our dummy JAR from being included in Spark distributions or uploaded to YARN -->
+    <dependency>
+      <groupId>org.spark-project.spark</groupId>
+      <artifactId>unused</artifactId>
+      <version>1.0.0</version>
+      <scope>provided</scope>
+    </dependency>
     <dependency>
       <groupId>org.apache.spark</groupId>
       <artifactId>spark-core_${scala.binary.version}</artifactId>
diff --git a/pom.xml b/pom.xml
index d3a69df7f279c0ebbb37d82a17d6235862118722..34c374d669624083100679922746c86e1b23564d 100644
--- a/pom.xml
+++ b/pom.xml
@@ -244,6 +244,22 @@
     </pluginRepository>
   </pluginRepositories>
   <dependencies>
+    <!--
+      This is a dummy dependency that is used to trigger the maven-shade plugin so that Spark's
+      published POMs are flattened and do not contain variables. Without this dependency, some
+      subprojects' published POMs would contain variables like ${scala.binary.version} that will
+      be substituted according to the default properties instead of the ones determined by the
+      profiles that were active during publishing, causing the Scala 2.10 build's POMs to have 2.11
+      dependencies due to the incorrect substitutions. By ensuring that maven-shade runs for all
+      subprojects, we eliminate this problem because the substitutions are baked into the final POM.
+
+      For more details, see SPARK-3812 and MNG-2971.
+    -->
+    <dependency>
+      <groupId>org.spark-project.spark</groupId>
+      <artifactId>unused</artifactId>
+      <version>1.0.0</version>
+    </dependency>
     <!--
          This is needed by the scalatest plugin, and so is declared here to be available in
          all child modules, just as scalatest is run in all children
@@ -2195,6 +2211,7 @@
           <shadedArtifactAttached>false</shadedArtifactAttached>
           <artifactSet>
             <includes>
+              <include>org.spark-project.spark:unused</include>
               <include>org.eclipse.jetty:jetty-io</include>
               <include>org.eclipse.jetty:jetty-http</include>
               <include>org.eclipse.jetty:jetty-continuation</include>