Google Remotely Nukes Apps From Android Phones

itwbennett writes "Google disclosed in a blog post on Thursday that it remotely removed two applications from Android phones that ran contrary to the terms of the Android Market. From the post: 'Recently, we became aware of two free applications built by a security researcher for research purposes. These applications intentionally misrepresented their purpose in order to encourage user downloads, but they were not designed to be used maliciously, and did not have permission to access private data — or system resources beyond permission.INTERNET. As the applications were practically useless, most users uninstalled the applications shortly after downloading them. After the researcher voluntarily removed these applications from Android Market, we decided, per the Android Market Terms of Service, to exercise our remote application removal feature on the remaining installed copies to complete the cleanup.' The blog post comes a day after security vendor SMobile Systems published a report saying that 20% of Android apps provide access to sensitive information." Update: 06/25 16:44 GMT by S : Clarified last sentence, which incorrectly suggested that 20% of Android apps were malicious. According to the report (PDF, which we discussed recently), "a majority of these applications were developed with the best of intentions and the user data will likely not be compromised.

Comments

Big Apple vs Google distinction:

[pancakegeels]

Google are not nuking Apps because the go against their ideology/ego/compulsiveness guidelines, but because they pose a risk.

Re:Draconian?

[SETIGuy]

Yeah, apple prefers to brick the whole phone if they don't like what you're doing with it.

Re:I'm ok with this

[schlick]

Having anything removed or tampered with by any outside agency on hardware I have purchased is unacceptable, full stop.

Then don't install apps from the app store DUMBASS. You can get the same apps without using the app store, and Google can't delete them.

You do have a choice with Android where your apps come from and who has control over them. Stop blaming some one else for your uninformed choices.