The Google Support forums are starting to light up with app developers who are reporting their apps have been “unpublished” from the Android Market. What’s worse, no notice was given and no explanation provided as to why their apps were essentially “turned off” and no longer displayed in the Market.
To clarify, the apps were not deleted from the Market, simply no longer displayed. Apps were not remotely wiped from Android devices, and the developer’s back-end still contained the apps in question. Developers simply need to republish the apps and all was well.
Some have postulated this action may have been Google’s way of cleaning out “spam apps”, others disagree because some of the removed apps have been “featured” in the Market, something reserved for popular, quality apps.
Perhaps Google is simply turning off apps either randomly or those apps that haven’t been touched by their developers in a while, cleaning out potentially “stale” apps, but letting developers republish them the next time they log on to their developer control panel. Then again, maybe it was simply a hiccup.
What are you thoughts? Let us know in the comments!
