As in so many other situations, the frightening outbreak of the Coronavirus that is now “invading” Europe has caused the number of searches on the most varied platforms to grow uncontrollably. Whether on the Google search engine or on the Google Play Store itself, the number of searches using terms related to the virus has increased dramatically.
Unfortunately, many people end up trying to take advantage of this “fragility” of society, taking advantage of this increase in the number of searches to spread false information or applications of dubious purposes. For now, it is not possible to confirm with certainty the main objective of the company, but it was confirmed that researches with several terms related to the Coronavirus stopped showing results.
Google Play Store tries to control the spread of deceptive Apps related to Coronavirus
This is a recent action, since the same terms worked just yesterday, showing results from games and applications that allegedly were related to the virus. Apparently, despite Google’s efforts to apply this block to various combinations of terms, it appears that some continue to deliver results.
Many of the applications presented in these results are clearly “scams”, which end up presenting unreliable information about the virus or even promising “miracle cures” for it. As you would expect, these are undermined by advertising in order to generate quick revenue.
Unfortunately, they all have several thousand downloads, proving that in these types of situations, users still do not use their common sense to filter the Apps they install on their smartphones.
Google may end up highlighting manually selected applications
Instead of completely eliminating all search results that are related to Coronavirus, this could be just an intermediate step for Google’s strategy.
Although fraudulent applications are more than many, there are still several options developed by credible sources that can really provide users with useful information about this virus.
Therefore, it is possible that Google is currently performing a manual filtering of applications that offer real value to users, avoiding the spread of misleading information.
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