In the more recent news surrounding tech giant Google, the company announced a new Play Store update – which is said to give users more control over their data and will indeed go on to protect such users from certain apps that happen to be of predatory nature. The update will go on to combat “fleeceware” subscription apps, and will also include new location data policies. The update will also keep deceptive content right out of the grasp of the Play Store. In this of course, Google hopes that such steps will help the company win over the user while ensuring user safety too.
It is a known fact now that more and more users are taking advantage of the Play Store’s built-in subscription functionality and hence Google has made its mission to crack down on fleeceware apps. Such apps were first noticed last year in September – with them going on to use the Play Store’s subscription system so as to trick users into paying ridiculous amounts of money for rudimentary apps such as QR scanners and calculators. While fleeceware apps aren’t exactly malicious, they do happen to be exploitative.
This new Play Store policy update will require developers to layout their subscription details much more clearly than before – all in an attempt to make sure that users have a better understanding of what they are signing up for. Such a procedure includes stuff like spelling out the offer itself, as well as the terms of the app’s free trial and even how to manage or indeed cancel the subscriptions later on.
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The search engine giant has also shed light on some of the other changes that might be brought forward – such as the prevention for deceptive apps and content from entering the Play Store. While the company hasn’t exactly made it clear as to how it will go on to achieve this, the content in question does include stuff such as deepfakes.
