Is Google dodging App Store scrutiny?
Google halts app submissions as Apple exposes what information apps are collecting
Google halted app submissions just as Apple exposed what information apps were collecting. Can it really be a coincidence?
On December 8 2020, Apple introduced a major change to its App Store. From that point on, every single new or updated app was obliged to make a privacy declaration to users, explaining what data is collected and how it is used.
In what could be a strange coincidence, tech observers have noticed that Google has mysteriously stopped updating the vast majority of its dozens of iOS apps since that very date. This is despite the company having previously maintained a regular schedule of almost weekly updates to its most popular apps, such as Gmail and the Chrome browser.
This has led to speculation that Google is worried about revealing how much information its apps are collecting on the people using them. The theory is that the company may be spending time reworking its apps so that, when declarations are published, they don’t appear too invasive.
“I could definitely see people being creeped out by it,” said Jamie Bishop, an iOS developer at Reincubate, who points to how Facebook adding privacy labels caused a stir amongst users. “It’d definitely be worse than that, because people use Google for more sensitive things than they use Facebook for – some people’s entire online life is on Google.”
The App Tracking Transparency initiative is part of Apple’s long-term drive to distance itself from tech rivals by focusing on user privacy. For example, a recent version of iOS also added new features that flag up to the user whenever apps use the camera
or microphone, or even read the contents of their clipboard.
The move coincides with Apple rolling out new App Store rules that ban advertising tracking across apps, which could also hurt Google’s lucrative ad business.
Could it be a coincidence?
As strange as the sudden halt in Google app updates looks, it could still be coincidental. “Google has always been really slow at adopting new iOS features,” explained iOS expert Peter Steinberger, the creator of an app called PDF Viewer Pro. “It took the company more than a year to add dark mode. Usually when a feature comes out, it needs a year to adopt it.”
He speculates that the reasons behind the abrupt halt on updates could be a combination of having privacy declarations signed off by an army of lawyers, or even something as simple as the fact the changes were rolled out just before Christmas; a period when the company typically has a “code freeze” and stops publishing updates while its workforce are largely out of office.
It could even be down to Google’s internal culture and the way the company is structured, according to Steinberger. Given the hundreds of engineers who work on each app, it might be that Google doesn’t know exactly what each app is doing with user data in the manner iOS requires, and so before it can declare it, each app will need to be audited.
Since Apple’s rollout of the App Tracking Transparency rules, Google has said it will abide by the rules and had updated a handful of its apps at the time of writing, including Google Translate and YouTube. The latter’s update is described only by the words “Fixed bugs, improved performance, drank way too much coffee”.
The new privacy declarations do give some sense of why Google may be worried: it reveals that YouTube’s app may link your identity to your purchases, location, contacts, search history, browser history and other usage data.
On the other hand, Steinberger says that most people are already resigned to Google having access to their most sensitive information. “What’s the point of collecting all kinds of data on Google Maps and Gmail?” he asked, laughing that “you have my email [so] you already have my life!”
People use Google for more sensitive things – some people’s entire online life is on Google