Monday, June 28, 2010

Google removed remotely two applications from some Android devices. And what?

A few days ago, an announcement came officially from Google who said that they removed two applications from the Android Market. The cause was that those two apps were simply not doing what they were intended to do. They were made by a security researcher, and even if they weren't developing any malicious activities or saving sensible data, because they violated Android's Terms of Service, Google decided to remove them. Till now, everything is OK.

But, what created notable flames on the blogs/forums/social networks was the information that Google, in order to remove completely that applications, also removed them (remotely) from the phones of some users who downloaded them. Personally, I don't see what is the problem in this, and why some people became...upset because of this. I think this reaction of Google was something normal.

Google affirmed that the two applications could be used in attacks, so, considering this, I really don't see any problem in Google's action. Are they afraid that if Google can do this, Google can even get access to their private data? So what, do they think that other OS providers didn't implement mechanisms like Google did? I'm sure that they also did. But at least, in Google's situation, it is very good that this is something transparent. Very good, Google!

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