When we’re talking about a company turning a strict eye to the quality of apps it allows on its platform’s store, it sure seems like we’re usually discussing Apple, notorious for the heavy-handed oversight it wields over App Store submissions. Today, however, Google’s the one that appears to be cleaning house, as reports arrive that something like 60,000 low-quality apps were removed from the Play Store over the course of February.
Google hasn’t officially announced any such total, and instead the number’s been computed by a company doing its own app store analytics. That also means that we can’t quite say how many of those 60,000 were developers pulling their own apps, and how many were a result of Google’s action, but the sheer number we’re talking about suggests some sort of automated screening system.
Details on just why so many apps were deleted are also hard to come by, but the bulk of these titles seem to fall into the MP3/ringtone category, a subsection all too familiar with low-on-features, high-on-spam offerings.
With a grand total of around 700,000 apps in the Play Store, 60,000 makes up a decent percentage, and shows that Google is serious about getting rid of bad apps, even if they make it into the Store in the first place.