Google to remove low-quality android apps from Play Store

Starting next month, Google is planning to remove low-quality and non-functional apps from its Play Store. The company has updated its Spam and Minimum Functionality Policy to enhance user experience by ensuring stability, responsiveness and engagement. Apps that exhibit minimal functionality or content, such as text-only apps, single wallpaper apps or those that fail to install or operate correctly, will be removed from the Play Store. 

The tech giant shared, “Apps that crash, do not have the basic degree of adequate utility as mobile apps, lack engaging content or exhibit other behaviour that is not consistent with a functional and engaging user experience are not allowed on Google Play.”

The cleanup scheduled for next month is expected to affect a significant number of apps and might include some popular apps with millions of downloads.

Google has been putting in a lot of efforts to enhance the Play Store’s user experience. In 2023, the company blocked nearly 2.8 million apps for violating policies and putting user security at risk. The company also stated that it banned around 3, 33,000 “bad” Google Play accounts that same year due to repeated serious policy breaches and concerns about fraud and malware.

The company will begin removing the apps from the Play Store starting August 31. This means developers still have a period of six weeks to make sure that their apps meet the new standards.

However, Google has not released a list of apps that they will be removing nor the requirement details for the apps. Earlier this year, Google removed several big Indian apps from the Play Store for not adhering to the company's in-app payments and billing policies. The list includes Jeevansathi, 99Acres, Bharat Matrimony, Shaadi.com, Naukri.com and Kuku FM among others.