Google has just released its annual report on its efforts to rid the Play Store of rogue apps. Apparently Google has blocked more than a million rogue applications last year.
In its blog post, Google said it had blocked 1.43 million apps that violated the rules. Millions of these apps were blocked before they even appeared on the Play Store.
Google says this proactive blocking is a result of improved security features and some policy improvements and better machine learning algorithms.
In the process, Google banned 173,000 delinquent accounts and prevented fraudulent transactions with an estimated value of USD 2 billion. Google also makes it difficult for rogue accounts to enter the Play Store because new developers must verify via cellphone, email, and other methods.
To make existing apps comply with stricter privacy policies, Google also blocked 500,000 apps that tried to access unneeded sensitive permissions in the last three years, as quoted by Android Police, Monday (1/5/2023).
In recent years, Google has also released a number of policies to protect the privacy and security of Android users. One of them is the Target API Level policy which can protect users from installing applications that may not have complete security and privacy features.
In addition, the search engine giant also released new, stricter conditions for online loan applications, especially in Kenya, Nigeria, the Philippines and India, to prevent fraud.
Last year the Google Play Store also started displaying privacy and data security information across all apps. Application developers are asked to write down what user data is collected, how it is used, and whether it is shared with third parties.