Google removed 813 creepware apps from the Android Play Store

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https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-removed-813-creepware-apps-from-the-android-play-store/

Google has removed last year a batch of 813 "creepware" apps from the official Android Play Store following a report from a group of academics studying stalkerware-like apps.

The research behind last year's report has now been published online this month in a paper titled "The Many Kinds of Creepware Used for Interpersonal Attacks."

In the paper, academics from the New York University, Cornell Tech, and NortonLifeLock (formerly Symantec) analyzed so-called "creepware" apps.

The term creepware refers to mobile apps that don't possess the full features of a spyware or stalkerware product but they can still be used to stalk, harass, defraud, or threaten another person, directly or indirectly.

[PDF] The Many Kinds of Creepware Used for Interpersonal Attacks | Semantic Scholar

A new algorithm, CreepRank, is developed that uses the principle of guilt by association to help surface previously unknown examples of creepware, which is characterized through a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. Technology increasingly facilitates interpersonal attacks such...

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