Google is Cleaning up the Play Store, Banning Cryptocurrency Mining Apps and Many Others

BY Evan Selleck

Published 27 Jul 2018

Android has been adopted all over the world, and, seeing as it’s the most popular mobile operating system out there, the Play Store has expanded in size and scope to match.

And while there are a variety of different apps out there, a lot of which are great in their usefulness (whatever that may be), there are also a plethora of bad actors out there, with apps that are only meant to serve as ad-serving nonsense, apps that aim to trick its users, and other less-than-positive scenarios. It has been an issue for years, but it looks like Google is going to start cleaning house.

As was reported on Friday by AndroidPolice, following Google’s updated Developer Policy that was published this week. Google is cracking down on different apps, including cryptocurrency mining options, apps that are designed to trick kids to download apps that are actually adult-themed, apps selling firearms and accessories, and even apps that are designed and built with “wizards” and automated tools based on stock templates.

“Apps that are created by an automated tool, wizard service, or based on templates and submitted to Google Play by the operator of that service on behalf of other persons are not allowed. Such apps are only permissible if they are published by an individually registered developer account belonging to the user of the automated tool, not the operator of the service.”

The banning of cryptocurrency mining apps should help reduce apps that masquerade as something they are not, or simply offer a thin shell of usefulness so they can use that device to mine in the background. The major focus appears to be on app spam, too, with Google trying to reduce the number of repeated apps available in the Play Store.

As of December of last year, the Play Store had 3.7 million apps available for Android devices out there in the wild. Google has been known in the past to cultivate its digital storefront by eliminating huge groups of apps in one fell swoop, but these new rules should make it less of a burden to cull hundreds of apps at once, and instead rely on the guidelines to mitigate the flood of bad actors moving forward.

[via AndroidPolice; Google]