Google has introduced a new Play Store policy to prevent mobile apps from collecting the users' call logs and texts.
The decision to change the policy came after the Google+ data leak which exposed sensitive data of millions of people around the world. This change is policy has ended an era of a free and barrierless platform for developers.
Google said only Android applications that users select as their ‘default apps’ for making calls or texting will be able to request access to such data.
According to Google's blog post, only those app will be able to access call logs and SMS data which have been selected as the phone's default app.
The new policy came into effect from yesterday. However, Google has given 90 days ultimatum to all Android app developers to update their apps according to the new policy.
Some features which require direct access to the SMS and Call Log permissions could be replaced by alternative APIs, such as the SMS Retriever API, the SMS Intent API, the Share Intent API, or the Dial Intent API.
The new policies introduced by Google is user-centric and it protects their privacy, while it has increased the restrictions for application developers.
