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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.
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?"
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.
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.
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.