Last week, around 46 apps by a Chinese developer, iHandy were taken down by Google from its Play Store. Initially, Google declined to provide reasons for the sudden removal of various security, horoscope, selfie, health and antivirus related apps which were downloaded over millions of times.
However, a total of eight apps were still present on Google’s Play Store, until three more were taken down, as per a Buzzfeed report. The Chinese company, established in the year 2008, claims to have almost 180 million monthly active users in more than 200 countries across the globe. Currently going through investigations, iHandy is one of the world’s largest mobile application developers.
In a conversation with Buzzfeed, iHandy VP Simon Zhu, while expressing how they found Google’s takedown quite unexpected, said “It is an unexpected action from our point of view. We are trying to find out the reasons. Hope the apps will be back to Play Store as soon as possible.”
Notably, Google has taken down apps made by Chinese developers in the past as well for various reasons; in this case, the removal is triggered by deceptive and disruptive ads. In August this year, after Trend Micro discovered malware inside certain apps, Google removed a total of 85 apps from its Play Store, most of these apps were related to gaming or photography and had more than 8 million downloads. The most popular names among these infected apps included, ‘Super Selfie’, ‘Cos Camera’, ‘One Stroke Line Puzzle’ and ‘Pop Camera’.
To exemplify, a very popular app known as ‘Sweet Camera- Selfie Beauty Camera, Filters’ which had over 50 million downloads was also removed in the process and it is not to be found on the Indian Play Store either.
Researchers discovered that all of these infected apps were put on the Play Store via distinct developer accounts and were signed by non-identical digital certificates, but they exhibited the same behaviors and shared a similar code.
Referenced from the statements given by Google’s spokesperson, "Our Google Play developer policies are designed to help create the best experience for users, and we explicitly prohibit deceptive or disruptive ads. When violations are found, we take action,"
