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Google Might Be Gearing Up To Remove Millions of Play Store Apps Next Month (pcworld.com)
An anonymous reader shares a PCWorld report: Take a look at the digital shelves of the Google Play Store and you're likely to come across a bevy of so-called zombie apps. These apps typically take the form of a knock-off of a popular game or a sloppy utility that doesn't quite match its description, and they strategically turn up alongside legitimate apps, which makes them hard to spot if you're not doing a forensic analysis of reviews while you shop. Now it looks like something is finally being done about them. In a letter uncovered by The Next Web, Google has begun warning some developers that one or more of their apps has been flagged for a lack of an adequate privacy policy, a common problem among these sort of hastily published and subsequently ignored apps. In the message, Google reiterates its policy, which "requires developers to provide a valid privacy policy when the app requests or handles sensitive user information." Such permissions include camera, microphone, account, contacts, or phone access, which requires a transparent disclosure of how user data is handled, according to Google's requirements. It's unclear how many letters were sent out, but The Next Web estimates it could affect millions of apps.
If the app your developing requires access to contacts, camera, and other functionality an increasing level of scrutiny should be given. The harder you make it the less likely these malicious apps will succeed.
...no more "Poke mongo"...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Given that Google Play only has an estimated 2.6 million apps as of December, "gearing up to remove millions of apps" seems like a bit of a stretch. Could we maybe report stories without making up dramatic numbers?
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
Why? ISTR Apple has never had a single iOS compromise unless it was a jailbroken device.
When I see a simple app asking access to camera and/or contacts I delete that app immediately.
And if you don't enable installing apps from shady pirate app sources, and you pay attention to the permissions apps request
Come on... To the *average* phone user, that's like saying "First you open a terminal..." and watch their eyes glaze over.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Anyone enabling installation of apps from unknown sources on their phone knows what they're doing.
You can't be serious...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Phew. Good thing https://arstechnica.com/security/2015/09/apple-scrambles-after-40-malicious-xcodeghost-apps-haunt-app-store/ never happened. Or http://www.cultofmac.com/241463/researchers-sneak-malicious-ios-app-into-the-app-store-undetected/ that. Or even http://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-china-malware-idUSKCN0RK0ZB20150921 that (which is a precursor to the first link I posted, so they obviously aren't even very good at fixing the problems when they show up!)
But hey we live in a world of alternative facts, so believe whatever you want I guess. Truth is irrelevant in our brave new world.
You sir have just found an untapped market.
1 Create a page that has dropdowns and automatically generates a privacy webpage.
2. Provide a link to the page after it's generated. Think image storage sight, but in this case it's a privacy policy creation site.
3. ??????
4. Profit!
So does Google. All your SPI are belong to us!
I really wish there was a way to sort the search results when I'm looking for an app. All the crappy ones usually show up first and I have to scroll endlessly to find the right one or a good one.
...sloppy utility that doesn't quite match its description...
What started out as a useful utility has descended down such a hell hole that I had to uninstall it... Removing it from the Playstore would be the next logical step.
"Why? ISTR Apple has never had a single iOS compromise unless it was a jailbroken device."
Because the mindset here is that living in daily fear of the next ransomware attack is for some reason preferable to Apple's walled garden. I myself am happy in the walled garden so long as there are still apps for all my use cases.
And how about the apps in videos that should be returned by https://www.youtube.com/result... but for some reason, I am getting an error message. YouTube search is apparently broken for me. I used the YouTube feedback form. I also wrote a comment that their error message contains no real useful information. Why are big companies' error messages so useless?
I just received such a mail last week about one of my apps (a music visualiser that uses the microphone). None of my apps have a privacy policy because none was required by Google up until now, and I couldn't be bothered (I'm a hobbyist app creator). Turns out that it's the law in some countries. If your app has access to personal information (such as contacts, camera, microphone, ...), or sends user information to a server somewhere, you MUST have a privacy policy that explains what you do with this information. All Google is doing now, is enforce that law. It has nothing to do with fighting knock-off apps or improving the quality of the apps in the store.
Not gonna happen until they separate the ad banner from the actual app.