Low emphasis on security dents Google’s revenue from the sales of apps!

Google pleasantly surprised customers who downloaded a fake antivirus app from Google Play with a refund and $5 credit to purchase items on Google Play.  Normally, the liability of fake or poor quality apps falls on the developer, as Google according to its terms of service is an agent. Google at best can withdraw the app and blacklist the developer.

This benevolent gesture has more to do with Apple raking in 10 billion dollars last year in app sales to a comparative 1.3 billion dollars by Google, despite the fact that there is a larger base of android smartphones and Google has a 75% share of all apps downloaded.  Apple’s focus on an app rich appstore with low incidents of malware and better margins for developers has reaped benefits with privacy and security wary customers preferring to use the safer platform.

Google has realized that its poor track record on malware has discouraged customers from spending money on their appstore.  With one million apps that have not been adequately security or privacy reviewed, a large effort is needed to sanitize the appstore.

The economics of security have begun to work, but not before claiming its share of unsuspecting victims who suffered hacked bank accounts, ransomware, frauds, loss of privacy and spyware.