Google revealed that it blocked 1.43 million apps for the Android operating system throughout 2022. The software had different breaches of the Play Store terms of use and could be used in fraudulent activities or to break user privacy; for the same reason, 173,000 developer profiles were also banned from the official store.
In the case of accounts, the main reasons that led to bans are related to malware publication operations, digital scams or participation in fraud schemes. In this last aspect, Google also claimed to have prevented losses of more than US$ 2 billion, or approximately R$ 10 billion, by blocking irregular transactions or considered abusive, made from malicious applications.
The numbers are part of an annual report published by Google, in order to bring transparency to the Play Store ecosystem and its attitudes towards user safety. According to the company, the total of almost 1.5 million blocked applications is related to the marketplace’s automated protection systems, with this volume being detected even before publication, which would put users at risk.
Google has applied additional information verification measures
In 2022, the company also noted the application of additional verification measures for developer accounts, with the requirement of information such as valid email and mobile number drastically reducing creation attempts. Meanwhile, work with development kits and changes to data access and authorizations required on smartphones also made at least one million Android apps more secure last year.
As part of these changes, around 500,000 apps were blocked from accessing sensitive permissions on users’ cell phones. Google also draws attention to the blocking of more than 500,000 accounts abandoned by original developers, which could be compromised by criminals and used to publish suspicious apps on the Play Store. The total was obtained over the past three years.
In the report, Google also commits to continuing to implement changes and working closely with app developers to limit unnecessary data access and protect users. Among the measures to be applied are changes in Android 14 that will prevent access to additional permissions by malicious software that uses older platform APIs, without the same safeguards.
Source: Google
