Google has used artificial intelligence to remove over 700,000 harmful apps from the Play Store in the past year. The rise of app stores has transformed how we interact with our smartphones, but it's also created a space where malicious applications can thrive. Google recently revealed that they removed more than 700,000 harmful apps in 2017 due to violations of user safety policies—marking a 70% increase compared to the previous year.
This significant effort is largely driven by advanced machine learning models that help identify suspicious behavior and potential threats before users even install an app. According to Andrew Ahn, a product manager at Google Play, 99% of apps that violated content policies were detected and blocked before they reached users. This proactive approach has allowed Google to act faster and more effectively against harmful applications.
In addition to this, Google removed over 250,000 so-called "cottage" apps last year. These are typically low-quality or fake apps that offer little value to users. They also took down thousands of apps containing inappropriate content such as pornography, extreme violence, hate speech, and illegal activities. Machine learning tools have played a crucial role in helping human reviewers spot these problematic apps and their developers.
One specific type of threat, known as Potentially Harmful Applications (PHAs), includes apps that attempt to steal personal information through phishing, or act as malware, such as Trojan horses. Some apps even perform SMS spoofing without the user’s knowledge. Although the number of PHAs is relatively small, they still pose a real risk to Android users, and Google has invested heavily to prevent them from appearing on the Play Store.
To further enhance security, Google integrated its malware scanning technology into Google Play Protect. This feature automatically scans all installed apps for harmful content, and users can also choose to manually scan their devices through the app update interface.
Despite these efforts, some malicious apps occasionally bypass Google’s defenses. For example, in August 2023, Google removed 30 apps that were secretly carrying out DDoS attacks. More recently, 60 children's games were taken down after being found to contain explicit content.
Google remains committed to improving its detection systems and machine learning models to better protect users from deceptive or policy-violating apps. As the threat landscape evolves, so too will Google’s strategies to ensure a safer and more trustworthy app ecosystem.
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