Play Store – Billionaire365

Google Will Eliminate Play Store Apps That Don’t Comply With The New Call Log and SMS Policies

In October, Google adopted new, stricter, call log and SMS policies, and granted apps developers 90 days to bring their applications into compliance with the new regulations. Now, that period is coming to an end, so Google will eliminate all the Play Store apps that don’t comply with the new call log and SMS policies.

According to Google, the Internet giant decided to adopt stricter policies regarding call log and SMS permissions because some apps abused the function. In short, Google wants to protect users from potentially malicious apps and private data leaks.

“As previously announced and directly communicated to developers via email, we’ll be removing apps from the Google Play Store that ask for SMS or Call Log permission and have not submitted a Permissions Declaration Form. If you have not submitted a permissions declaration form and your app is removed, see below for next steps,” said Paul Bankhead, Director, Product Management at Google Play Store on Android Developers Blog.

Google Will Eliminate Play Store Apps That Don’t Comply With The New Call Log and SMS Policies

“Our new policy is designed to ensure that apps asking for these permissions [call log and SMS] need full and ongoing access to the sensitive data in order to accomplish the app’s primary use case and that users will understand why this data would be required for the app to function,” Paul Bankhead added.

Paul Bankhead also explained what Google would consider when reviewing a submission:

The likelihood that an average user would understand why this type of app needs full access to the data.
User benefit of the feature.
Importance of the permission relative to the core functionality of the app.
Risks presented by all apps with this use case having access to this sensitive data.
Availability of more narrow alternatives for enabling the feature.

According to Google, tens of thousands of devs have already resubmitted their apps to comply with the new call log and SMS policies. Those applications which do not meet the requirements, however, will be deleted from the Google Play Store.

Anna Galvez

Google Removed From Its Play Store 13 Games That Were Installing Malware On Android Devices

A total of 13 games have been withdrawn from Google Play Store after Google detected that they are infecting the Android devices on which they were installed with malware. Hackers were using malicious programs within these mobile games to access Android-powered smartphones to obtain private information.

These games seemed harmless, and most of them were driving simulators, while some of them even had a great success regarding the number of downloads and were also placed in the trend section of the Android app store, Google Play Store.

This severe security problem was not detected by Google’s own protocols that filter content on Google Play but was revealed by ESET analyst Lukas Stefanko who, through a message on his Twitter profile, showed that 13 applications accumulating more than 560,000 downloads were infected with malware. The analyst’s cryptic message explains that these apps, which have already been removed by Google from the Play Store, installed an additional APK file unrelated to the purpose of the game and without a “legitimate function.”

Google Removed From Its Play Store 13 Games That Were Installing Malware On Android Devices

Apparently, the first alarm signals have come from the users themselves who have installed these applications and have made them clear in Google Play comments, reporting that the game itself does nothing, but they have detected a slowdown of the mobile.

All these applications had the authorship of the developer Luiz Pinto, and in some of the cases, users reported that they were unable to find the icon of the app once installed as, perhaps, the developer himself hid it.

Everything indicates that the malicious programs within these 13 games are adware, programs designed to display advertisements on the infected devices without the authorization of the owner and from which the developer makes money. Google has not made any further comments on this situation besides the announcement of the removal of those 13 infected apps.

Anna Galvez