Google pulls the plug on the Play Security Reward Program

Launched in March 2012, after Google decided to merge Android Market and Google Music, Google Play is currently hosting almost 1.7 million apps, according to AppBrain. While roughly 30,000 apps joined the platform last month, over 25,000 were removed during the same period. In some cases, the developer decides to unpublish the app for various reasons, but often Google is removing apps for policy violations or other reasons. When it comes to policy violations, Google has been fighting malicious apps for over a decade. Obviously, the Google Play Security Reward Program was a key element in this battle. Sadly, this initiative will die at the end of the month.

In an email to developers who contributed to this program, Google revealed that "As a result of the overall increase in the Android OS security posture and feature hardening efforts, we’ve seen fewer actionable vulnerabilities reported by the research community. Due to this decrease in actionable vulnerabilities reported, we are winding down the GPSRP program. The GPSRP program will end on August 31st." 

In addition to the above, the tech giant also mentioned that the reports submitted by the final day will be handled before September 30th, when the program will be entirely shut down. Obviously, the final payments to developers will take a few weeks to be processed.

Active since October 2017, the Google Play Security Reward Program increased the reward limits to $20,000 in July 2019. That amount was (and still is) offered to those who discovered remote code execution bugs. When the theft of sensitive data is involved, the prize can reach $5,000. 

Developers or not, most Google users will surely find something useful in Robert G. Pascall's The Google Workspace Bible: [14 in 1] The Ultimate All-in-One Guide from Beginner to Advanced | Including Gmail, Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Every Other App from the Suite, which is currently 10% off in paperback form, so it can be acquired for $24.72 instead of $27.47. The Kindle variant of this best-seller goes for $9.99.