Google Removes 43 Android Apps for Displaying Ads in Screen-Off Mode

Some apps on the Google Playstore were removed and that includes 43 Android apps. Some of the apps that got deleted include TV/DMB player, Music Downloader, News, and Calendar applications.

The apps that were removed included certain media streaming apps. These media streaming apps catered to Korean audience groups. Other app categories were also removed and these app categories could always be targeting different country users around the world.

Why would Google remove any app from the platform?

They have a Google Play Developer Policy which all app makers need to abide with. The developer policy, states ads can’t be downloaded if the device screen is off. But these apps seem to download ads even when the device screen remained off. Most often this should not be a problem, but then they could cause certain issues.

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These 43 Android apps were found to mar a user’s device screen in the following ways;

• The application could impact the device’s battery life.
• It could increase the amount of data that is consumed by a user
• Increases the risk of the available information on the phone.
• User profiles can also get disturbed through them

Most of these apps did not start their fraudulent practices soon after initiation. They delay the process of injection in your copy with their scrupulous means to avoid getting detected in the beginning. This latency period is what makes all the difference as people are not able to initially detect what the app is capable of. 

Intricate configurations were present in these apps which could be altered from remote locations. According to a recent post from McAfee, these apps could make detection difficult by either utilizing the Firebase storage (a cheap, simple, and very powerful storage service for Google scaling) or messaging service options.

Also Read: Alert: Google Urges 1.8B Gmail Users to Adopt Enhanced Safe Browsing

People reading it might often get worried about finding this out.

Even though Google removed 43 Android apps, there is no guarantee of any other apps won’t use such scrupulous ways. 

How do you know if any app is making your details known to the world?

• Your battery will drain faster, even when not in use.
• Sometimes your phone might appear hotter even though you have switched it off.
• You might also find your phone hanging in between some activities.

Sometimes some of us download more than one app at a time. It is hard then to know which app is responsible. Thus, the best practice would be to download one app and use it for some days without downloading any other. However, you cannot avoid downloading multiple apps at one go. In such cases, you can check which apps are draining your battery fast. Those that are draining it fast will be visible on your battery settings page. If you want, you can disable these background apps to get enhanced protection.