Google has canceled thousands of developer accounts and blocked more than a million apps from its Google Play store. The tech giant’s Android Security and Privacy Team and Mohet Saxena, Director of Trust & Safety for Play & Android Security, released an internal report this week detailing how they have enforced their new security policy. They have prevented 1.43 million policy-violating apps from being published on Google Play by 2022, thanks to new and improved security features and policy improvements. In addition, Google has banned 173,000 “bad accounts” and prevented more than $2 billion in “fraudulent and abused transactions.”
The team has also raised the bar for new developers to join the Play ecosystem by using phone, email, and other identity verification methods. This has contributed to a reduction in accounts used to publish “violating” apps on the Play platform. Google has also strengthened the protection, policy, and outreach and education of the Android platform, which has prevented about 500,000 submitted apps from needlessly accessing sensitive permissions over the past 3 years.
Google’s App Security Improvements program has helped fix about 500,000 security vulnerabilities affecting about 300,000 apps in 2022. The tech giant has also launched a Google Play SDK Index to help developers evaluate the reliability and security of an SDK and make informed decisions about whether an SDK is right for their business and their users.
