Mitron an Indian app went viral and soon was removed from Google Play Store. Another app developed by Jaipur based OneTouchAppLabs names as ‘Remove China App’ is also suspended from Google Play Store.
Till now, there was no statement from Google. Now, Google has responded and has given the reason for the removal of these apps.
Mitron emerged as TikTok rival and later discovered to be a copy of an existing short video app called ‘TicTic’. And the remove China app, it detected and removed third-party “Chinese” apps on smartphones and helped users bulk delete them.
Sameer Samat, Vice President, Android and Google Play, said in a statement:
“Earlier this week, we removed a video app for a number of technical policy violations. We have an established process of working with developers to help them fix issues and resubmit their apps. We’ve given this developer some guidance and once they’ve addressed the issue the app can go back up on Play.”
The Mitron app was removed. It should be back on Google Play once the developers fix the issue pointed out by Google.
“This is a longstanding rule designed to ensure a healthy, competitive environment where developers can succeed based upon design and innovation. When apps are allowed to specifically target other apps, it can lead to behavior that we believe is not in the best interest of our community of developers and consumers. We’ve enforced this policy against other apps in many countries consistently in the past – just as we did here,” Samat added.
Remove China app “encourages or incentivizes users into removing or disabling third-party apps or modifying device settings or features unless it is part of a verifiable security service”.
As for the Remove China Apps app, it doesn’t look like the app will be back on Google Play.
