by In the last few hours it has been revealed that Google Play will include a notification whose purpose is to notify users of applications that are easily blocked or fail a lot on mobile devices, before they are installed. The supplied data is expected to contribute to the basis of Android operating systems.
It is important to mention that, Google already began to implement measures last November to hide the applications that had been outdated in the Play Store, as well as the notification of an update for the applications that fail. This was intended to protect users of programs that lack the latest privacy and security protections.
According to Mishaal Rahman and the portal Reddit, notifications have begun to be displayed in different Google Play ‘apps’ warning that this application “may stop working” on the device. This notice is displayed in red under the install button.
The feature is called ‘Quality Bar by Phone Model’ and examines the technical quality of the ‘app’, which can vary between devices.
An app may be stable and run smoothly on one model of phone, but not work as well on another, depending on its features. As detailed by Google Play, based on this, has introduced a new threshold for “bad behavior” of the ‘apps’ that is evaluated according to the phone model.
Specifically, this threshold is set at a maximum of 8 percent per phone model. Therefore, for Google Play to maintain the visibility of the ‘apps‘ and do not display the malfunction notice to usersthe user-perceived ANR and failure rate, must not exceed 8 percent.
Alerts about Google Play Store apps turn on
The Play Store data security labels of the most popular apps on the store display misleading or misleading information that does not match privacy policies in 80% of cases reviewed, according to a Mozilla study.
The Play Store provides information about how apps collect and manage data from users who install them on their devices.
In this way, they indicate if they share data with third parties and if they obtain information such as the user’s location, personal or financial data, messages or even web browsing history.
To find out how the app store handles privacy notices, the Mozilla Foundation has conducted a study called ‘Privacy Not Included in Mozilla’ in which he has analyzed the data security labels of 40 applications available on it.
Specifically, it has studied the labels of the 20 most popular free applications and those of the 20 most used paid applications among users of devices with the Android operating system.
To know the situation of each one, the company has established a rating system ranging from the label ‘Poor’‘Needs improvement’ to ‘Okay’, based on the fidelity of the information shared in the tags.
Of the total number of apps reviewed, 80% of them showed some discrepancy between the privacy policies shared by the apps and the information Google displays in the Play Store data security labels.
For example, in the case of TikTok or Twitter, the discrepancy on the part of Mozilla is clear, since the information offered by Google Play explains that data is not shared with third parties.
However, the privacy policies shared by the apps make it clear that they do share user information with advertisers and internet service providers.
*With information from Europa Press.
