Feed: Slashdot
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Title: Google Play Sees 47% Decline In Apps Since Start of Last Year

Link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/04/29/2256...

Google Play's app marketplace has seen a dramatic 47% drop in available apps -
- from 3.4 million to 1.8 million -- since the start of 2024. An analysis by
app intelligence provider Appfigures attributes the decline to stricter
quality standards, expanded human reviews, and increased enforcement against
low-quality and deceptive apps. TechCrunch reports: In July 2024, Google
announced it would raise the minimum quality requirements for apps, which may
have impacted the number of available Play Store app listings. Instead of
only banning broken apps that crashed, wouldn't install, or run properly, the
company said it would begin banning apps that demonstrated "limited
functionality and content." That included static apps without app-specific
features, such as text-only apps or PDF file apps. It also included apps that
provided little content, like those that only offered a single wallpaper.
Additionally, Google banned apps that were designed to do nothing or have no
function, which may have been tests or other abandoned developer efforts.
Reached for comment, Google confirmed that its new policies were factors
here, which also included an expanded set of verification requirements,
required app testing for new personal developer accounts, and expanded human
reviews to check for apps that try to deceive or defraud users. In addition,
the company pointed to other 2024 investments in AI for threat detection,
stronger privacy policies, improved developer tools, and more. As a result,
Google prevented 2.36 million policy-violating apps from being published on
its Play Store and banned more than 158,000 developer accounts that had
attempted to publish harmful apps, it said. TechCrunch also notes that a new
trader status rule, which went into effect in the EU this February, could be
another contributing factor. It requires developers to display their names
and addresses in their app listings, and failure to comply would see their
apps removed from EU app stores.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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