Google Play is heralded as the best and safest place to source your Android app. Keeping it safe is a big job and in their latest Android Developers blog, Google has listed some of the stats and issues they face keeping it safe.
In efforts to keep you, and everyone using Android safe, Google remove over 700,000 apps from the Play Store last year, that’s 70% more than last year.
The apps were removed because they ‘violated the Google Play policies’, these violations included apps deemed to be Copycats – apps that masquerade as another, apps containing ‘Inappropriate content’ that includes ‘pornography, extreme violence, hate, and illegal activities’, and apps that contain Potentially Harmful Applications (PHAs), which can ‘conduct SMS fraud, act as trojans, or phishing user’s information’.
The apps removed were from 100,000 developers and as a result those developers, some of whom were repeat offenders, were summarily booted from the Google Play Store. Google has also made it harder for those developers to re-join Google Play under different accounts as well in an attempt to stop this abuse.
If you’re getting your apps from places outside Google Play, chances are something is going to happen. Google Play is far from perfect, but it is currently one of the best and safest places to find apps and games with Google having a vested interest in constant vigilance when it comes to distributing apps.
