Mitron app may come back to Google Play Store, but not Remove China Apps: Here's why

Tech giant Google recently took down to viral apps from the Google Play Store that originated from India. These were a short-video making app called ‘Mitron’ and the recently-gone-viral ‘Remove China Apps’ application. The move caused a lot of people to question the decision behind pulling down the two applications. Surprisingly, neither the developers nor Google had provided a strong reason as to why the applications were taken down. However, we now have an official statement on the same from Google. 

As per Sameer Samat, Vice President, Android, and Google Play, Mitron was taken off the store because of a number of technical violations of Google’s policies. Meanwhile, the Remove China Apps application was taken down because it encourages people into removing/disabling other apps, without being a part of a verifiable security service.

Mitron app could come back

“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,” said Samat.

If the response is to be believed, Mitron could actually come back to the Google Play Store once the technical violations Google speaks of are taken care of by the developers. The application recently saw a big growth in India after people started boycotting TikTok, a direct competitor. Mitron had amassed over 5 million downloads and had a 4.7 rating on the Play Store before being pulled down.

Remove China Apps: What actually went wrong?

As per Samat, the Remove China Apps tool “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”. He added that “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.

The “anti-China” application had gathered about a million users rapidly via the Google Play Store, where it also quickly became the top free application. However, it is unlikely that we will see the application again on the Play Store shelves.

(The story first appeared on BGR)