Google Pulls Off 3 Apps For Kids From Play Store Over Data Collection

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Bhubaneswar: Google Play Store has removed three apps used by children from its platform on account of violation of Google’s data collection policies.

As per a report by TechCrunch, researchers at the International Digital Accountability Council (IDAC), a nonprofit watchdog in Boston, found that three popular and “seemingly innocent-looking apps aimed at younger users” — Princess Salon, Number Coloring and Cats & Cosplay — were collecting data of users, mostly kids in this case, thus violating Google’s policy, and leaking this data to SDKs of third parties.

“The practices we observed in our research raised serious concerns about data practices within these apps,” TechCrunch quoted IDAC president Quentin Palfrey as saying.

These three apps have a sum of about 20 million downloads. All of them were pulled off after IDAC informed Google of the violations.

“We can confirm that the apps referenced in the report were removed. Whenever we find an app that violates our policies, we take action,” Google told the website.

TechCrunch stressed in its report that how this instance reminds of “one of the ways that users can unknowingly be tracked through apps”.