On May 17, a new app was published on the Google Play Store known as Remove China Apps. The app basically scans Chinese apps on Android devices and uninstalls them. It soon gained widespread popularity, recording over 1 million downloads and positive reviews in a short period.

Google has now delisted the Remove China Apps from Google Play. According to Google’s Deceptive Behaviour rules, an app cannot encourage users to remove third-party apps. Since the app was designed to help users uninstall Chinese apps from their Android smartphones, Google had to remove it.

Google confirmed to Gadgets 360 that it took the decision to pull the popular app for violating Google Play’s Deceptive Behaviour Policy that doesn’t allow apps that “encourage or incentivise users into removing or disabling third-party apps” and “mislead users into removing or disabling third-party apps”.

The app is riding on the back of recent anti-China sentiments fuelled by the COVID-19 outbreak, India-China border dispute, and other things which have led to the rise of boycott China movement in India. 

This happens to be the second of such app riding on the back of anti-China sentiments that have been pulled down from the Play Store in recent times. Just a few hours before Remove China Apps was pulled down, the Mitron app which seems to mirror TikTok was also removed from the store. The app is a free short video sharing app and a social platform for users to share content online. It was also removed, in this case, for violating spam and repetitive content policies.

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