Google bans 600 apps from the Play Store over disruptive advertising

Google has been hard at work managing obnoxious apps on the Play Store. The overwhelming amount of apps on the store forced Google to take drastic actions this week.

Earlier this week, Google published an advisory on its security blog confirming the removal of 600 apps from Play Store. Google said the apps included those which showed disruptive adverts like full-screen ads and ads when the app was not in use.

We define disruptive ads as ads that are displayed to users in unexpected ways, including impairing or interfering with the usability of device functions. While they can occur in-app, one form of disruptive ads we’ve seen on the rise is something we call out-of-context ads, which is when malicious developers serve ads on a mobile device when the user is not actually active in their app…

For example, imagine being unexpectedly served a full-screen ad when you attempt to make a phone call, unlock your phone, or while using your favorite map app’s turn-by-turn navigation.

– Google

When compared to Apple, Google is usually seen as the less secure as it has rather lenient approval process. This allows devs to sneak in abusive ads that end up causing issues for the customer. However, Google has now assured that it has developed new technologies to identify disruptive advertising. The company gave an example of a new machine-learning approach to detect when ads are shown out of context