Google Bans Unofficial COVID-19 Apps

Google Bans Unofficial COVID-19 Apps — But Not Before They Score many Thousands Of Downloads

Google is chucking coronavirus apps from its Play Store, but they’d already amassed 400,000 ... [+] downloads.

Google Bans Unofficial COVID-19 Apps

Google was busy over the last month cleaning its Play store of an entire host of Android apps promising information on the spread of coronavirus. It’s had to try to so because of a policy that prohibits any COVID-19 related apps that haven’t been approved by a national government or a clinic.

But a Forbes analysis of 10 of these banned apps shows that not only was one linked to active disinformation, together they scored a minimum of 400,000 downloads before being shown the door.

Coronavirus apps go big before the ban

One of the more intriguing developers of now-banned Google apps was called Sim&Co. Their “Wuhan Coronavirus map” scored 100,000 downloads and many reviews, consistent with app monitor SensorTower, promising to supply information like symptoms and therefore the names of local people to the user who’d died of COVID-19. Another of the developer's creations was called “Make Fake News,” which had amassed a minimum of 10,000 downloads and encourages users to go to a news site and quickly change the words in a piece of writing. It’s also been banned.

Forbes didn’t get a response to a search from that developer. But creators of two other banned apps - the “Corona Virus Contact Check” by Kruz Factory and therefore the “Coronavirus Tracker” by ontrac.io - who did respond said they’d been thrown out due to the Google policy on COVID-19 apps.

The Korea-based Kruz Factory developer told Forbes they’d actually been banned twice after going above 100,000 downloads. consistent with the app description, it promised to assist users to check if they’d had contact with a COVID-19 patient within the past. The dev believed the primary ban was because he’d included a billboard within the app and was seen to be exploiting the disaster. “So I removed the ad from my app, changed the function to let users register the knowledge of a patient and launched it again with a replacement name... Google unilaterally stopped my app another time,” he said.

Josh Hintze, from ontrac.io, wasn’t as accepting of Google’s outlawing of the Coronavirus Tracker, which offered to “monitor all the important time breaking news” on COVID-19. He passed on Google’s own reasoning for the ban, which noted that the app had broken the tech giant’s “Sensitive Events” policy. “Specifically, we do not allow apps that lack reasonable sensitivity towards or maximize a natural disaster, atrocity, conflict, death, or another tragic event,” Google wrote. It then went on to notice that if the software creator wanted to urge their tool back on Google Play, they’d need to show approval from a government body or healthcare organization.

Hintze said the app wasn’t making any money from the app. “However, they felt we were being insensitive to things. The part that basically stinks is that they counted this as a strike against our developer account which could jeopardize our other apps.”

Apple takes a hard stance too
The other apps that scored quite 50,000 downloads and were subsequently banned included: HealthLynked COVID-19 Tracker, Coronavirus - live map & latest news, and Coronavirus Statistics. Developers for every hadn’t skilled requests for information at the time of publication. Google also has not provided comment.

Apple features a similar policy as Google: remove all apps that don’t have official government or healthcare-industry approval. only one app reviewed by Forbes - the HealthLynked COVID-19 Tracker - has an iOS version that still survives the Apple App Store. At one point earlier in March, it had been one of the highest-rated apps on the market. And HealthLynked may be a public company that gives genuine healthcare services, so it’s little surprise Apple has let it stay.

What to try to if you’ve downloaded a banned app?

No matter how harsh or swift Apple and Google punishments are for non-complying apps, coronavirus trackers are, clearly, still ready to get a big following before being banned.

For anyone who downloaded the affected apps, they’d be knowing to delete them. Not only are they unlikely to urge the newest, most pertinent information, but they’re also not getting updated. meaning that they might also contain vulnerabilities that open up the phone to attacks. Nobody needs the distraction of getting to affect an infected phone when they’re already trying to avoid real-life disease.