It seems Google is finally taking some steps to purge millions of applications from the Play Store that are not safe. The company has started sending out emails to developers across the globe stating that it will soon “limit visibility” or remove apps from the store if they don’t update Google’s User Data Policy.
As reported by The Next Web, the company is sending notice to developers whose apps do not have a privacy policy. The move will eventually get rid of millions of so-called ‘zombie apps’ which are present in the Play Store.
“Google Play requires developers to provide a valid privacy policy when the App requests or handles sensitive user or device information. Your app requests sensitive permissions (e.g. camera, microphone, accounts, contacts, or phone) or user data, but does not include a valid privacy policy,” reads the notice.
The search engine giant is giving developers until March 15 time to make the desired changes or else “administrative action will be taken to limit the visibility of your app, up to and including removal from the Play Store.”
This is a welcome move, as the Play Store consists of those millions of applications which do not have a proper privacy policy, which in turn compromises users sensitive information. These includes apps which are not updated for a while and does not comply with Google latest policy. For end users, it means that soon they will get what exactly they are looking for and one will get more refined result when searching for the desired application.