When Android was first introduced way back in 2008, it came to public knowledge that Google had a remote “killswitch” to remove applications from your phone. Immediately everyone was all up in arms with speculation that Google would be just like Apple with the iPhone and have it under a dictatorship. Fast-forward to now and we know that’s just not true. Actually quite the opposite.
Google recently used their removal feature for two applications that violated the Android Market terms of service. And did a really good job of letting everyone know and also why they did so.
Recently, we became aware of two free applications built by a security researcher for research purposes. These applications intentionally misrepresented their purpose in order to encourage user downloads, but they were not designed to be used maliciously, and did not have permission to access private data — or system resources beyond permission.INTERNET. As the applications were practically useless, most users uninstalled the applications shortly after downloading them.
Read the fully story and explanation on the Android Developers Blog.
