To maintain the safety and security of Google Play, Google continually restricts apps violating the terms they set. Among the other tools is Play Protect, which acts as a shield against such ill-intentioned applications. In 2022 alone, it stopped 1.43 million apps from appearing on Google Play for breaking their policy terms, said the search giant in its blog.
Last year alone, it blocked 173,000 bad accounts and prevented more than $2 billion in fraudulent and abusive money transactions. The tech giant also mentioned that developers can now enter the Play ecosystem with email, phone, and other identity validation methods, which helped prevent violative app publishing by some accounts.
Apart from this, over the past three years, Google has prevented half a million submitted apps from sneaking into unnecessary sensitive permissions.
Developers fixed issues
Through the App Security Improvements program last year, developers were able to diagnose half a million security loopholes, which affected 300,000 applications downloaded close to 250 billion times. For a better experience, development teams can get direct phone support via the Helpline Pilot.
Google Play and new Android
“In addition to the Google Play features and policies that are central to providing a safe experience for users, each Android OS update brings privacy, security, and user experience improvements,” reads an excerpt from Google’s blog post about its partnership with California-based developers on compatibility testing against upcoming Android versions.
Ads and Transparency Guides
Tech giants plan to address “fraudulent and malicious ads” on the Play Store promptly, as announced during the 2022 Data Safety Section launch. Initially providing users with clarity on data collection and sharing, company representatives now assert that they will collaboratively enhance these protections until they comprehensively cover all aspects under one umbrella.
Updates for Pixel users
Company spokespersons said security and privacy settings updates are already live for Google Pixel devices running the latest Android 13, while Private Computer Core enables the detection of harmful apps by maintaining users’ privacy on Pixel devices.
Meanwhile, other than this recent update, on May 10th, Google will hold its I/O event, at which they are expected to unveil, among other things, the Google Pixel 7a and possibly a foldable Pixel phone.
