Google is cleaning up Play Store

Google has removed over 0.7 mn apps from the play store in 2017 that violated its Play store policies and among them, more than 70% were removed in 2016.

In a blog post, Andrew Ahn (Product manager) has stated that "Not only did we remove more bad apps, we were able to identify and take action against them earlier. In fact, 99% of apps were identified and removed before anyone could download them since these apps contained abusive content. This was possible through significant improvements in our ability to detect abuse - such as impersonation, inappropriate content, or malware - through new machine learning models and techniques."

Based on the below three factors these apps were removed from the Play Store.

Copycats: More than a quarter of a million were removed that attempted to deceive the users by emulating a well-known app.

Inappropriate Content: Apps that contain or promote inappropriate content such as pornography, extreme violence, hate and illegal activities.Tens of thousands of apps with inappropriate content were taken down last year as a result of such improved detection methods.


Potentially Harmful Applications (PHAs): PHAs are a type of malware, capable of harming people or their devices (apps that conduct SMS fraud, act as trojans, or phishing user's information). PHAs are small in volume since Play Store already has protection against such malware.