Open Letter to Google on Mandatory Developer Registration for App Distribution

https://keepandroidopen.org/open-letter/

by kaplun • 5 months ago

462 368 5 months ago

pmdr• 5 months ago

The undersigned are basically a list of entities Google would like to see disappear.

OutOfHere2• 5 months ago

Precisely! Google doesn't care one bit about civil society; it cares about power to itself even if this means punching freedom and liberty in the face. Personally I think it'll be a good thing if this restriction finally wakes up people to seek alternatives to Google.

dfabulich2• 5 months ago

The most controversial claim in this letter is in the section that "Existing Measures Are Sufficient."

In Google's announcement in Nov 2025, they articulated a pretty clear attack vector. https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/11/android-de...

For example, a common attack we track in Southeast Asia illustrates this threat clearly. A scammer calls a victim claiming their bank account is compromised and uses fear and urgency to direct them to sideload a "verification app" to secure their funds, often coaching them to ignore standard security warnings. Once installed, this app — actually malware — intercepts the victim's notifications. When the user logs into their real banking app, the malware captures their two-factor authentication codes, giving the scammer everything they need to drain the account.
While we have advanced safeguards and protections to detect and take down bad apps, without verification, bad actors can spin up new harmful apps instantly. It becomes an endless game of whack-a-mole. Verification changes the math by forcing them to use a real identity to distribute malware, making attacks significantly harder and more costly to scale.

I agree that mandatory developer registration feels too heavy handed, but I think the community needs a better response to this problem than "nuh uh, everything's fine as it is."

A related approach might be mandatory developer registration for certain extremely sensitive permissions, like intercepting notifications/SMSes...? Or requiring an expensive "extended validation" certificate for developers who choose not to register...?

verdverm6• 5 months ago

Agree with this middle path you point out. On one hand, I do not want some apps to be distributed anonymously, I need to know who is behind it in order to trust the app. On the other hand, many apps are benign.

Permissions are a great way to distinguish.

amiga3863• 5 months ago

Do you need Google to compel the author to start a business relationship with them, which they can cut off at any time?

Or would you be OK knowing that Thunderbird you downloaded from https://thunderbird.net/ is signed by the thunderbird.net certificate owner?

JoshTriplett3• 5 months ago

If you can "coach someone to ignore standard security warnings", you can coach them to give you the two-factor authentication codes, or any number of other approaches to phishing.

harikb• 5 months ago

Installing an app that silently intercepts SMS/MMS data is a persistent technical compromise. Once the app is there, the attacker has ongoing access.

In contrast, convincing someone to read an OTP over the phone is a one-time manual bypass. To use your logic..

A insalled app - Like a hidden camera in a room.

Social engineering over phone - Like convincing someone to leave the door unlocked once.

nine_k• 5 months ago

The 2-factor SMS messages usually say: "Do not give this code to anyone! The bank will NEVER ask you for this code!".

The sideloading warning is much much milder, something like "are you sure you want to install this?".

instagib• 5 months ago

Never ending worm approach is to get remote control via methods on android or apple. Then scam other contacts. It’s built into FaceTime. Need 3rd party apps for android.

mwwaters5• 5 months ago

The phisher’s app or login would be from a completely new device though.

Passkeys are also an active area to defeat phishing as long as the device is not compromised. To the extent there is attestation, passkeys also create very critical posts about locking down devices.

Given what I see in scams, I think too much is put on the user as it is. The anti-phishing training and such try to blame somebody downward in the hierarchy instead of fixing the systems. For example, spear-phishing scams of home down payments or business accounts work through banks in the US not tying account numbers to payee identity. The real issue is that the US payment system is utterly backward without confirmation of payee (I.e. giving the human readable actual name of recipient account in the banking app). For wire transfers or ACH Credit in the US, commercial customers are basically expected to play detective to make sure new account numbers are legit.

As I understand it, sideloading apps can overcome that payee legal name display in other countries. So the question for both sideloading and passkeys is if we want banks liable for correctly showing the actual payee for such transfers. To the extent they are liable, they will need to trust the app’s environment and the passkey.

thousand_nights• 5 months ago

yeah the thing is, if someone can social engineer you on the phone and make you do their bidding, you've lost no matter what

darkwater• 5 months ago

In Google's announcement in Nov 2025, they articulated a pretty clear attack vector. https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/11/android-de...

This reeks of "think of the children^Wscammed". I mean, following this principle the only solution is to completely remove any form of sideloading and have just one single Google approved store because security.

A related approach might be mandatory developer registration for certain extremely sensitive permissions, like intercepting notifications/SMSes...? O

It doesn't work like that. What they mean with "mandatory developer registration" is what Google already does if you want to start as a developer in Play Store. Pay 25$ one-time fee with a credit card and upload your passport copy to some (3rd-party?) ID verification service. [1] In contrast with F-Droid where you just need a GitLab user to open a merge request in the fdroid-data repository and submit your app, which they scan for malware and compile from source in their build server.

[1] but I guess there are plenty of ways to fool Google anyway even with that, if you are a real scammer.

kotaKat• 5 months ago

You can’t even win with adding more scare screens because as soon as Epic isn’t allowed to bypass the scare screens, they’ll sue you.

Just like they went after Samsung for adding friction to the sideload workflow to warn people against scams.

https://www.macrumors.com/2024/09/30/epic-games-sues-samsung...

daveidol2• 5 months ago

I agree with Epic. It should be like on windows or macOS where you can register, get notarized, and then distribute without scare screens. I don’t see why phones are inherently different than computers.

cherryteastain• 5 months ago

community needs a better response to this problem than "nuh uh, everything's fine as it is."

You can also cut yourself with a kitchen knife but nobody proposes banning kitchen knives. Google and the state are not your nannies.

john_strinlai4• 5 months ago

You can also cut yourself with a kitchen knife but nobody proposes banning kitchen knives.

oh nice, i love this game.

you cant carry a kitchen knife that is too long, you cant carry your kitchen knife into a school, you cant brandish your kitchen knife at police, you cant let a small child run around with a kitchen knife...

literally most of what "the state" does is be a "nanny"

(not agreeing or disagreeing with google here, i have no horse in this particular race. but this little knife quip is silly when you think about it for more than 5 seconds)

ranger_danger• 5 months ago

Laws protect people from being hurt by others, keeping society safe and fair for everyone.

daveidol2• 5 months ago

I don’t want to be too flippant, but I think there is a real trade off across many aspects of life between “freedom” and “safety”.

There is a point at which people have to think critically about what they are doing. We, as a society, should do our best to protect the vulnerable (elderly, mentally disabled, etc) but we must draw the line somewhere.

It’s the same thing in the outside world too - otherwise we could make compelling arguments about removing the right to drive cars, for example, due to all the traffic accidents (instead we add measures like seatbelts as a compromise, knowing it will never totally solve the issue).

bonoboTP• 5 months ago

protect the vulnerable (elderly, mentally disabled, etc)

Yes, one could imagine some kind of mental test and if you fail you don't get to use your bank online, you have to walk to the physical location to make transactions. But this can obviously be abused to shut out people from banking based on political and other aspects. Generally democracies are wary of declaring too broad sets of people as incapable of acting independently without some guardian. Obviously beyond a certain threshold of mental incapacitation, dementia etc. it kicks in, but just imagine declaring that you're too easy to influence and scam and we can't let you handle your money,... But somehow we can rely on you using sane judgment when voting in elections. Or should we strip election rights too?

We rely on polite fictions around the abilities of the average person. The contradictions sometimes surface but there is no simple way to resolve it without revising some assumptions.

MSFT_Edging• 5 months ago

I think there's room to raise the bar of required tech competency without registration.

Manually installing an app might be close to the limit of what grandma can be coached through by an impatient scammer.

Multiple steps over adb, challenges that can't be copy and pasted in a script, etc. It can be done but it won't provide as much control over end user devices.

Cyph0n5• 5 months ago

Does your logic extend to PCs? If not, why?

Because I hope you realize that clamping down on “sideloading” (read: installing unsigned software) on PCs is the next logical step. TPMs are already present on a large chunk of consumer PCs - they just need to be used.

bitwize5• 5 months ago

Of course it extends to PCs. It'd suck for us, but end users, software vendors, content providers, and service providers all benefit from a more restricted platform that can provide certain guarantees against malware, fraud, piracy, and so forth. It's pathologically programmer-brained to assume that the good old days of being able to run arbitrary code on a networked computing device would last forever. That freedom must be balanced against the interests of the rest of society to avoid risk from certain kinds of harm which can easily proliferate in an environment where any program can run with the full authority of the owner and malware spreads willy-nilly.

tzs2• 5 months ago

You missed their point. They are not saying that what Google is doing is a good way to address the underlying problem Google says it is addressing.

They are saying that claiming the underlying problem is not real or not big enough to need addressing is an ineffective way to argue.

jeroenhd7• 5 months ago

Developer registration doesn't prevent this problem. Stolen ID can be found for a lot less money than what a day in a scam farm's operation will bring in. A criminal with access to Google can sign and deploy a new version of their scam app every hour of the day if they wish.

The problem lies in (technical) literacy, to some extent people's natural tendency to trust what others are telling them, the incompetence of investigative powers, and the unwillingness of certain countries to shut down scam farms and human trafficking.

My bank's app refuses to operate when I'm on the phone. It also refuses to operate when anything is remotely controlling the phone. There's nothing a banking app can do against vulnerable phones rooted by malware (other than force to operate when phones are too vulnerable according to whatever threshold you decide on so there's nothing to root) but I feel like the countries where banks and police are putting the blame on Google are taking the easy way out.

Scammers will find a way around these restrictions in days and everyone else is left worse off.

gjsman-1000• 5 months ago

Stolen ID can be found for a lot less money than what a day in a scam farm's operation will bring in.

Well, in that case, Google has an easy escalation path that they already use for Google Business Listings: They send you a physical card, in the mail, with a code, to the address listed. If this turns out to be a real problem at scale, the patch is barely an inconvenience.

kodebach4• 5 months ago

My guess is that Android 17 will show the registered name of the developer of the app you're trying to install. With stolen IDs you can only get accounts for individual developers not for organisations.

When a scammer pretending to be your bank tells you to install an app for verification and it says "This app was created by John Smith" even grandma will get suspicious and ask why it doesn't show the bank's name.

Tharre8• 5 months ago

There simply isn't a known solution to this problem. If you give users the ability to install unverified apps, then bad actors can trick them into installing bad ones that steal their auth codes and whatnot. If you want to disallow certain apps then you have to make decisions about what apps (stores) are "blessed" and what criteria are used to make those distinctions, necessarily restricting what users can do with their own devices.

You can go a softer route of requiring some complicated mechanism of "unlocking" your phone before you can install unverified apps - but by definition that mechanism needs to be more complicated then even a guided (by a scammer) normal non-technical user can manage. So you've essentially made it impossible for normies to install non-playstore apps and thus also made all other app stores irrelevant for the most part.

The scamming issue is real, but the proposed solutions seem worse then the disease, at least to me.

Retr0id7• 5 months ago

We know how to do hardware-bound phishing-resistant credentials now, it is a solved problem.

RandomGerm4n2• 5 months ago

The solution would be a "noob mode" that disables sideloading and other security-critical features, which can be chosen when the device is first turned on and requires a factory reset to deactivate. People who still choose expert mode even though they are beginners would then only have themselves to blame.

singpolyma32• 5 months ago

There simply isn't a known solution to this problem. If you give users the ability to install unverified apps, then bad actors can trick them into installing bad ones that steal their auth codes and whatnot.

This is also true if they can only install verified apps, because no company on earth has the resources to have an actually functional verification process and stuff gets through every day.

jcynix• 5 months ago

I agree that mandatory developer registration feels too heavy handed, but I think the community needs a better response to this problem than "nuh uh, everything's fine as it is."

OK, so instead of educating stupid (or overly naive) people, we implement "protections" to limit any and all people to do useful things with their devices? And as a "side effect" force them to use "our" app store only? Something doesn't smell that good here …

How about a less drastic measure, like imposing a serious delay for "side loading" … let's say I'd to tell my phone that I want to install F-Droid and then would have to wait for some hours before the installation is possible? While using the device as usual, of course.

The count down could be combined with optional tutorials to teach people to contact their bank by phone meanwhile. Or whatever small printed tips might appear suitable.

warkdarrior3• 5 months ago

How would that solve scammer-driven installs? The scammer is not in a rush, they already have the victim listening and following their instructions.

bigstrat20038• 5 months ago

I agree that mandatory developer registration feels too heavy handed, but I think the community needs a better response to this problem than "nuh uh, everything's fine as it is."

Why would the community give a different response? Everything is fine as it is. Life is not safe, nor can it be made safe without taking away freedom. That is a fundamental truth of the world. At some point you need to treat people as adults, which includes letting them make very bad decisions if they insist on doing so.

Someone being gullible and willing to do things that a scammer tells them to do over the phone is not an "attack vector". It is people making a bad decision with their freedom. And that is not sufficient reason to disallow installing applications on the devices they own, any more than it would be acceptable for a bank to tell an alcoholic "we aren't going to let you withdraw your money because we know you're just spending it at the liquor store".

gretch• 5 months ago

At some point you need to treat people as adults, which includes letting them make very bad decisions if they insist on doing so.

That's right, it's your decision to use Android. If you choose to do so, that's on you.

zeroxfe• 5 months ago

At some point you need to treat people as adults, which includes letting them make very bad decisions if they insist on doing so.

The world does not consist of all rational actors, and this opens the door to all kinds of exploitation. The attacks today are very sophisticated, and I don't trust my 80-yr old dad to be able to detect them, nor many of my non-tech-savvy friends.

any more than it would be acceptable for a bank to tell an alcoholic "we aren't going to let you withdraw your money because we know you're just spending it at the liquor store".

This is a false equivalence.

mwwaters5• 5 months ago

There is some world where somebody scammed through sideloading loses their life savings, and every country is politically fine with the customer, not the bank, taking the losses.

But for regular people, that is not really the world they want. If the bank app wrongly shows they’re paying a legitimate payee, such as the bank, themselves or the tax authority, people politically want the bank to reimburse.

Then the question becomes not if the user trusts the phone’s software, but if the bank trusts the software on the user’s phone. Should the bank not be able to trust the environment that can approve transfers, then the bank would be in the right to no longer offer such transfers.

kovek• 5 months ago

What if we asked users if they want extra protection? I think that would be nice..

gmueckl2• 5 months ago

The reality in South East Asia doesn't support that. You're assuming that the potential victims are able to either use Android alternative or that they are willing and able to educate themselves about scams. The reality in these countries is that neither is the case in practice. Daily lives depend a lot on smartphones and they play a big role in cashless financial transactions. Networking effects play a big role here. Android devices are the only category that is both widely available and affordable.

Education is also not that effective. Spreading warnings about scams is hard and warnings don't reach many people for a whole laundry list of reasons.

The status quo is decidedly not fine. Society must act to protect those that can't protect themselves. The only remaining question is the how.

Google has an approach that would work, but at a high cost. Is there an alternative change that has the same effects on scammers, but with fewer issues for other scenarios?

crazygringo2• 5 months ago

Life is not safe, nor can it be made safe without taking away freedom.

So... no food and safety regulations, because life is not safe, and people should have the freedom to poison food with cheaper, lethal ingredients because their freedom matters more?

You're right that things can't be made more safe without taking away the freedom to harm people. Which is why even the most freedom-loving countries on earth strike a balance. They actually have tons and tons of safety regulations that save tons and tons of lives, even you from your point of view that means not "treating people as adults". You have to wear a seatbelt, even if you feel like you're not being treated like an adult. Because it's also not just your own life you're putting at risk, but your passengers' as well.

You're taking the most extreme libertarian stance possible. Thank goodness that's an extremely minority view, and that the vast, vast majority of voters do actually think safety is important.

pas6• 5 months ago

If those bad decisions have a lot of higher order effects and they turn out to be very costly for society, then limiting freedom seems worth it.

And it seems Google thinks society is beginning to unravel in SEA due to scammers. Trust breaks down, people stop using phones to do important things, GDP can shrink, banks go back to cheques, trees will be cut down!!

It's bad to let people go and catch the zombie virus and the come back and spread it, right?

...

I don't like it, but the obvious decision is to set up a parallel authority that can issue certificates to developers (for side loading), so we don't have to trust Google. Let the developer community manage this. And if we can't then Google can revoke the intermediary CA. And of course Google and other manufacturers could sell development devices that are unlocked, etc.

TZubiri2• 5 months ago

This is a terrible response as a Software Developer by the way. You can just use this to ignore any security concern.

It signals that you don't care much about security, and that you don't care about non-technical users, and don't even have the capacity to see how they view a system.

Sure, you can analyze domain names effectively, you can distinguish between an organic post and an ad, you know the difference between Read and Write permissions to system files, etc...

But can you put yourself on the shoes of a user that doesn't? If not, you are rightfully not in a position as a steward of such users, and Google is.

danpalmer3• 5 months ago

Cars worked fine without seatbelts too. Just because the world goes on doesn't mean we can't do better.

Taking a step back though, I suspect there are cultural differences in approach here. Growing up in Europe, the idea of a regulation to make everyone safer is perfectly acceptable to me, whereas I get the impression that many folks who grew up in the US would feel differently. That's fine! But we also have to recognise these differences and recognise that the platforms in question here are global platforms with global impact and reach.

em-bee4• 5 months ago

the problem is that in developing countries smart phones are a massive technology jump for people who lack the education to even have a clue whats going on. treating people as adults does not work if they don't have the education needed for that.

these people aren't gullible. they are ignorant (in the uneducated sense). they are not making bad decisions. they are not even aware that there is a decision to be made.

and worst of all, this problem affects the majority of those populations. if more than half of our population was alcoholic then we absolutely would restrict the access to alcohol through whatever means possible.

it's a pandemic. and we all know what restrictions that required.

acac10• 5 months ago

You say that until it happens to your mother/father/bf/gf/grandparent/…

Then we will see how you will react.

hypeatei• 5 months ago

but I think the community needs a better response

The community does not need to do that. Installing software on my device should not require identification to be uploaded to a third party beforehand.

We're getting into dystopian levels of compliance here because grandma and grandpa are incapable of detecting a scam. I sympathize, not everyone is in their peak mental state at all times, but this seems like a problem for the bank to solve, not Android.

iamnothere14• 5 months ago

These people would try to ban talking if the scams moved to in-person conversations. At some point individual responsibility has to come into play.

999900000999• 5 months ago

How about.

"I am responsible for my own actions" mode.

You click that, the phone switches into a separate user space. Securenet is disabled, which is what most financial apps rely on.

Then you can install all the fun stuff you want.

This is really a matter of Google not sandboxing stuff right. Why the hell does App A need access to data or notifications from App B.

AAAAaccountAAAA• 5 months ago

The new "Terminal" app might eventually evolve into something like that.

thewebguyd• 5 months ago

Why the hell does App A need access to data or notifications from App B.

Advertising networks. Just like how you see crap like a metronome app have a laundry list of permissions that it doesn’t need. Some cases they are just scammy data harvesters, but in other cases it’s the ad networks that are actually demanding those permissions.

Google won’t sandbox properly because it’s against their direct business interest for them to do so. Google’s Android is adware, and that is the fundamental problem.

renewiltord2• 5 months ago

This mode already exists. It's called "Install LineageOS".

Retr0id7• 5 months ago

the malware captures their two-factor authentication codes

Aren't we supposed to have sandboxing to prevent this kind of thing? If the malware relies on exploiting n-days on unpatched OSes, they could bypass the sideloading restrictions too.

UncleMeat5• 5 months ago

Codes arrive via SMS, which is available to all apps with the READ_SMS permission. This isn't an OS vuln. It is a property of the fact that SMS messages are delivered to a phone number and not an app.

On the Play store there is a bunch of annoying checking for apps that request READ_SMS to prevent this very thing. Off Play such defense is impossible.

hahn-kev• 5 months ago

I like the idea of requiring extra work to get notification access. But really what all these scams pray on are time sensitivity, take that away and you solve the problem in many ways. For example, your bank shouldn't let you drain your account without either being in person or having a mandatory 24hr waiting period. Same could be done with side loaded apps getting notifications, if it's side loaded and wants to read notifications, then it needs to wait 24 hrs. Mostly it won't ever matter.

Alternatively reading notifications could be opt in per app, so the reading app needs to have permission to read your SMS message app notifications, or your bank notifications, that would not be as full proof as that requires some tech literacy to understand.

marcprux• 5 months ago

I am the author of the letter and the coordinator of the signatories. We aren't saying "nuh uh, everything's fine as it is." Rather, we are pointing out that Android has progressively been enhanced over the years to make it more secure and to address emerging new threat models.

For example, the "Restricted Settings"¹ feature (introduced in Android 13 and expanded in Android 14) addresses the specific scam technique of coaching someone over the phone to allow the installation of a downloaded APK. "Enhanced Confirmation Mode"², introduced in Android 15, adds furthers protection against potentially malicious apps modifying system settings. These were all designed and rolled out with specified threat models in mind, and all evidence points to them working fairly well.

For Google to suddenly abandon these iterative security improvements and unilaterally decide to lock-down Android wholesale is a jarring disconnect from their work to date. Malware has always been with us, and always will be: both inside the Play Store and outside it. Google has presented no evidence to indicate that something has suddenly changed to justify this extreme measure. That's what we mean by "Existing Measures Are Sufficient".

[^1]: https://support.google.com/android/answer/12623953

[^2]: https://android.googlesource.com/platform/prebuilts/fullsdk/...

mirekrusin2• 5 months ago

Would you say that iOS ecosystem suffers the same rate of malware as Android?

dfabulich2• 5 months ago

I guess it's too late now, but I think "sufficient" is much too strong a word to use for that position, and puts Google in a position where they can disregard you because they "know" that existing measures aren't "sufficient."

"Existing measures are working," perhaps?

kodebach4• 5 months ago

Like you said, for years now they have added more and more restrictions to address various scams. So far none of them had any effect, other than annoying users of legitimate apps, because all the new restrictions were on the user side. This new approach restricts developers, but is actually a complete non-issue for most, since the vast majority of apps is distributed via Google Play already.

In the section "Existing Measures Are Sufficient." your letter also mentions

Developer signing certificates that establish software provenance

without any explanation of how that would be the case. With the current system, yes, every app has to be signed. But that's it. There's no certificate chain required, no CA-checks are performed and self-signed certificates are accepted without issue. How is that supposed to establish any form of provenance?

If you really think there is a better solution to this, I would suggest you propose some viable alternative. So far all I've heard for the opponents of this change is, either "everything is fine" or "this is not the way", while conveniently ignoring the fact that there is an actual problem that needs a solution.

That said, I do generally agree, with you that mandatory verification for *all* apps would be overkill. But that is not what Google has announced in their latest blog posts. Yes, the flow to disable verification and the exemptions for hobbyists and students are just vague promises for now. But the public timeline (https://developer.android.com/developer-verification#timelin...) states developer verification will be generally available in March 2026. Why publish this letter now and not wait a few weeks so we can see what Google actually is planning before getting everybody outraged about it?

renewiltord2• 5 months ago

all evidence points to them working fairly well.

What is this evidence? Please share it.

svat2• 5 months ago

This is what I was able to find with some quick searching:

- From Dec 2024 there's https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/general/2915570/state-g... and https://theinvestor.vn/thai-govt-collaborates-with-google-to... which list some efforts done in “collaboration between the Digital Economy and Society (DES) Ministry [of Thailand] and Google”. It mentions “The initiative started in April, providing the Google Play Protect feature”, which “blocked attempts by criminals to install apps more than 4.8 million times on more than 1 million Android devices”. And https://www.nationthailand.com/blogs/business/tech/40036973 is from earlier (Apr 2024), about the introduction of the Google Play Protect feature.

- From April 2025 there's https://blog.google/company-news/inside-google/around-the-gl... a blog post from a “VP, Government Affairs & Public Policy”, which mentions “people in Asia Pacific feel it acutely, having lost an estimated $688 billion in 2024” (I think this may be across all scams?) and ends with “Combatting evolving online fraud in Asia-Pacific is critical” after listing a bunch of random things (unrelated to Android) Google is/was doing. This suggests to me that Google was under some criticism/pressure from governments for enabling scams, and eager to say “see, we're doing something”.

- The developer verification announcement came four months later in August 2025: https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/08/elevating-...

In early discussions about this initiative, we've been encouraged by the supportive initial feedback we've received. In Brazil, the Brazilian Federation of Banks (FEBRABAN) sees it as a “significant advancement in protecting users and encouraging accountability.” This support extends to governments as well, with Indonesia's Ministry of Communications and Digital Affairs praising it for providing a “balanced approach” that protects users while keeping Android open. Similarly, Thailand’s Ministry of Digital Economy and Society sees it as a “positive and proactive measure” that aligns with their national digital safety policies.

This shows that it was a negotiation with the governments/agencies in Brazil, Indonesia, Thailand that were breathing down on Google to do something.

- The fourth country where this developer verification is rolling out first is Singapore, and https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/android-malware-sc... is from Sep 2023 while https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/google-android-dev... is from Feb 2024 which mentions that a certain upgrade to Google Play Protect (blocking apps if they “demands suspicious permissions such as access to restricted data like SMSes and phone notifications”) was first rolling out in Singapore.

- And the most recent https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/11/android-de... from November 2025 (which promised the “students and hobbyists” account type and the “experienced users” flow “in the coming months”) also has a “Why verification is important” section that mentions the “consistently acted to keep our ecosystem safe” and “common attack we track in Southeast Asia” and “While we have advanced safeguards and protections to detect and take down bad apps, without verification, bad actors can spin up new harmful apps instantly”.

The overall picture I get is less of “Google to suddenly abandon these iterative security improvements” but more like: under pressure from governments to stop scams, Google has been doing various things like the things you mentioned, and scammers have also been evolving and finding new ways to carry out scams at scale (like “impersonating developers”), and the latest upcoming change requiring developer verification on “certified Android devices” is simply the next step of the iteration. It sucks and feels like a wholesale lock-down, yes, but it does not seem a jarring disconnect from the previous steps in the progression of locking things down.

realusername2• 5 months ago

Google's announcement is just trolling, there's an order of magnitude more scams on the Play store and they don't call for its closure.

Right now when I search for "ChatGPT", the top app is a counterfeit app with a fake logo, is it really this store which is supposed to help us fight scams?

warkdarrior3• 5 months ago

Right now when I search for "ChatGPT", the top app is a counterfeit app with a fake logo, is it really this store which is supposed to help us fight scams?

Just did Play search for "ChatGPT" and the top-2 results were for OpenAI's app (one result was sponsored by OpenAI one result was from Google's search). So anecdotally your results may vary.

raincole• 5 months ago

standard security warnings

Make the warning a full screen overlay with a button to call local police then.

(Seriously)

"but local police won't treat that seriously..." "the victim will be coached to ignore even that..." well no shit then you have a bigger problem which isn't for google to fix.

a456463• 5 months ago

Maybe we should take away peoples' phone calls, ability to use knives, walking on the street, swimming in water, drinking liquids of any kinds, alcohol, trains, while we are at it.

GeekyBear• 5 months ago

I think the community needs a better response to this problem than "nuh uh, everything's fine as it is."

People choosing between the smartphone ecosystems already have a choice between the safety of a walled garden and the freedom to do anything you like, including shooting yourself in the foot.

You don't spend a decade driving other "user freedom" focused ecosystems out of the marketplace, only to yank those supposed freedoms away from the userbase that intentionally chose freedom over safety.

chopin• 5 months ago

The main problem here is the banks relying on an untrusted device as second factor.

Only immutable devices should be allowed as second factor.

RHSeeger• 5 months ago

There will _always_ be a need to balance between safety and the cost of adding more safety. There is no point at which safety is complete; there is always more that can be done, but the cost gets higher and higher.

So yes, "its fine the way it is" _is_ valid; but the meaning it "we're at a good point in the balance, any more cost is too much given the gains it generates"

shaky-carrousel• 5 months ago

That attack vector is just a symptom. It’s unfathomably foolish to use two-factor authentication via something as easy to intercept as SMS. Two-factor authentication should be done using a separate hardware token that generates time-based one-time codes. Anything else is basically security theater.

microtonal6• 5 months ago

One time codes are still vulnerable to phishing by a site that proxies the bank's authentication challenge. You need something like FIDO2 where a challenge-response only works when the relying party ID is correct.

glenstein• 5 months ago

A related approach might be mandatory developer registration for certain extremely sensitive permissions, like intercepting notifications/SMSes...? Or requiring an expensive "extended validation" certificate for developers who choose not to register...?

I think my overriding concern is not nuking F-Droid. I actually think that's a great solution and, interestingly, F-Droid apps already don't use significant permissions (or often use any permissions!) so that might work. Also it would be good if perhaps F-Droid itself could earn a trusted distributor status if there's a way to do that.

Or a marriage of the two, F-Droid can jump through some hoops to be a trusted distributor of apps that don't use certain critical permissions.

I think there have to be ways of creatively addressing the issue that don't involve nuking a non-evil app distribution option.

pessimizer• 5 months ago

In Google's announcement in Nov 2025, they articulated a pretty clear attack vector.

If you can be convinced by this, you can be convinced by anything. What if the scammer uses "fear and urgency" to make the person log onto their bank account and transfer the funds to the scammer?

If you can convince people to install new apps through "fear and urgency," especially with how annoying it often is to do outside of the blessed google-owned flow (and they're free to make it more annoying without taking this step), that person can be convinced of anything.

I agree that mandatory developer registration feels too heavy handed, but I think the community needs a better response to this problem than "nuh uh, everything's fine as it is."

There's no other "solution" other than control by an authority that you totally trust if your "threat" is that a user will be able to install arbitrary apps.

The manufacturer, service provider, and google, of course, won't be held to any standard or regulations; they just get trusted because they own your device and its OS and you're already getting covertly screwed and surveilled by them. Google is a scammer constantly trying to exfiltrate information from my phone and my life in order to make money. The funny thing is that they are only pretending to defend me from their competition - they're not threatened by those small-timers - they're actually "defending" me from apps that I can use to replace their own backdoors. Their threat is that they might not know my location at all times, or all of my contacts, or be able to tax anyone who wants access to me.

rogerallen• 5 months ago

I wonder if putting this choice on the user would be most appropriate?

People fearful about being scammed should buy a phone with a hardware lock to prevent it from ever accepting sideloads--no option to go to dev mode, ever. You could even charge more for the extra security.

People who want the freedom to sideload can choose to buy a phone without the extra hardware security feature.

miloignis3• 5 months ago

I have a radical solution - it should not be possible to contact someone unsolicited.

All phone calls, SMS, emails, and instant messages should be blocked unless the other party is in my contacts or I have reached out to them first (plus opt-in contact from contacts of contacts, etc). Ideally, cryptographically verified.

I would argue this is the real solution to spam and scamming - why on earth are random people allowed to contact me without my consent? Phone numbers or email addresses being all you need to contact me should be an artifact of an earlier time, just like treating social security numbers as secret.

I realize this isn't super practical to transition existing systems to (though spam warnings on email and calls helps, I suppose, and maybe it could be made opt-in). I dearly hope the next major form of communication works this way, and we eventually leave behind the old methods.

Also, SMS shouldn't be used for 2FA anyway.

wilsonnb3• 5 months ago

How are you going to reach out to someone first if all communication is blocked because they don't already know you?

cjmoran• 5 months ago

I have an even more radical solution. The real root of the problem is that we use this "money" concept to represent value. If money didn't exist there wouldn't be any reason to steal, hack, or scam.

What do we replace it with? Haha, idk man. How about water? More difficult to hoard in ridiculous quantities, better spend it before it evaporates, and it occasionally falls from the sky (UBI). That's what I call a liquid asset!

cyberrock• 5 months ago

Ah this explains why so many banks are making their own 2FA apps with warnings to never share the codes. Well a lot of people are very annoyed to install them because they perceive it as a technological downgrade when it's the opposite. I can only imagine asking them to use passkeys or hardware keys would be difficult, especially if there is some FUD (or truth?!) about how $boogeyman has your keys if you use them.

eviks• 5 months ago

Are you not aware of cases where marks physically went to the bank, withdrew all cash and dropped it off to the criminals, also taking out loans and yelling at bank employees when they were trying to stop them? No app involved.

You'll always find individual cases where people do extremely dumb stuff, but using that as a justification is also dumb. If you want to significantly curtail that freedoms of a large group, it's on you to come up with a good evaluation of tradeoffs, so

the community needs a better response to this problem than "nuh uh, everything's fine as it is."

They already have, but you choose to use a fake simplification as a representative

kelp6063• 5 months ago

why anyone thinks "open letters" and petitions to a trillion-dollar company will get them to change their mind is beyond me

gleenn• 5 months ago

It matters to me because I'm reading it now and feel more informed about this problem. Throwing the towel in and saying it's all pointless isn't helpful.

shimman2• 5 months ago

It's not throwing in the towel, it's about doing things that we the people can actually do.

One thing, we the people can do, is pressure our politicians to break up Google along with the rest of big tech.

There are many primary challengers this cycle that are running anti-monopoly platforms. Help their cause, signing pointless petitions is just West Wing style fantasy that is extremely childish.

jeroenhd7• 5 months ago

It's something apps that will soon break can point their users to so they know to blame Google and a bunch of incompetent governments.

Google will not change their minds, they're too busy buying goodwill from governments by playing along. There aren't any real alternatives to Android that are less closed off and they know it.

Retr0id7• 5 months ago

Because the company either has to address it, or stop pretending it's "listening to concerns" or whatever. Even if it doesn't change the outcome, it makes it clearer that the company is engaging in bad faith.

jonathanstrange2• 5 months ago

For me this change is a problem not just because of the ID upload to Google but mainly because it's another nail in the coffin of native software solutions. It increases friction and anything that increases friction is bad.

Concretely, my original plan was to provide an .apk for manual installation first and tackle all this app store madness later. I already have enough on my plate dealing with macOS, Windows, and Linux distribution. With the change, delaying this is no longer viable, so Android is not only one among five platforms with their own requirements, signing, uploading, rules, reviews, and what not, it is one more platform I need to deal with right from the start because users expect software to be multiplatform nowadays.

Quite frankly, it appears to me as if dealing with app stores and arbitrary and ever changing corporate requirements takes away more time than developing the actual software, to the detriment of the end users.

It's sad to watch the decline of personal computing.

verdverm6• 5 months ago

I personally see an unmoderated app store as more detrimental to the end users. The harm happens at scale.

jonathanstrange2• 5 months ago

When there were many different app stores to choose from, nobody would be forced to use an unmoderated app store. What happened to individual freedom and responsibility?

InsideOutSanta2• 5 months ago

That's the status quo, though. Apple's App Store and Google's Play Store are essentially unmoderated. The sheer scale of them and both platforms' technical architectures prohibits either company from properly validating their stores' contents - they can't even catch the easy cases, like all the apps that impersonate ChatGPT. The main thing they manage to do is inconvenience innocent indie devs once in a while.

The result is unwarranted trust from users in stores that are full of scams.

Apple and Google effectively built malware pipelines under the guise of security.

jhasse7• 5 months ago

Did your users really consider your app if it wasn't in the Play Store?

boje• 5 months ago

Uh, is having Aurora Store as a signatory a good idea? It's literally a Google Play Store bypassing tool.

drnick12• 5 months ago

Isn't the obvious solution to use an AOSP fork that does not have to comply with the registration requirements? Distributions like Graphene and Lineage are completely unaffected.

turblety• 5 months ago

Google are also destroying that path by delaying the releases more and more.

jhasse7• 5 months ago

Even more reason to use these forks (and support them), right?

wackget• 5 months ago

No, because many apps refuse to run on third-party distros due to misguided notions of them being insecure. It's easy to say "just don't use those apps" but in reality, people are rightly unwilling to put up with any friction and so will simply continue to use Google's version of the OS.

microtonal6• 5 months ago

Many banking apps work as long as you relock the bootloader. E.g. on GrapheneOS:

https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compa...

jamesnorden• 5 months ago

No bank in my country has an app that works with those, so it's not an option for me anymore.

arjie2• 5 months ago

Does the web app for the bank actually selectively block mobile phones? I just checked and Chase here in the US lets me log in on Brave Mobile on iOS. Perhaps your bank lets you log on in the browser.

drnick12• 5 months ago

Is using a cheap Android device (the cheapest Android phones are less than $100 on Amazon) an option? The idea is to use that phone for 2FA or whatever is app is necessary for, and use a degoogled device for your other day-to-day activities. It's not ideal because you need to spend some extra money, but it buys you a lot of privacy.

jhasse7• 5 months ago

Have yoz really checked for GrapheneOS? Which country?

dvh• 5 months ago

Wrong approach. Vote with your wallet instead. My next mobile phone will not have OS from Google (not from Apple).

hollandheese• 5 months ago

Good luck with that.

fsflover• 5 months ago

Works for me.

yndoendo2• 5 months ago

No luck needed.

Linux based phones are starting to become viable as daily drivers. [0] They are even coming with VM Android in case an application is needed that does not have a Linux equivalent.

I am interested in how Google's gatekeeper tactics are going to affect Android like platforms such as /e/os and GrapheneOS. [1]

[0] http://furilabs.com/

[1] https://murena.com/america/products/smartphones/

thayne• 5 months ago

I would if there was a viable mobile phone OS I could switch to. iOS isn't any better. Linux phones, sadly, aren't very practical for daily use. AOSP based projects also have many limitations, and are still dependent on Google.

jeroenhd7• 5 months ago

What phone are you considering? Sailfish still doesn't seem very successful and mobile Linux barely boots on anything that performs better than a fifteen year old budget device.

I'm kind of hoping Qualcomm's open sourcing work will also affect the ability to run mainline Linux on Android devices, but it's looking like a Linux OS that covers the bare basics seems to be a decade away.

jhasse7• 5 months ago

Fairphone 6 with /e/OS for example.

criddell4• 5 months ago

Something like 7 iOS phones are sold every second of the day and there are even more Android phones sold. The number of people who care about this issue is far too few for any kind of boycott to be noticed by the handset makers. The only option is to appeal to Google's sense of what's right.

In the time it took you to read this comment, 200 phones were sold.

sdsd• 5 months ago

Highly technically knowledgeable people are more influential in this sphere than the average consumer. If developers hate your device and love your competitor, that's a real problem.

shimman2• 5 months ago

Oh yes, let me an individual out vote a trillion dollar corporation. That will surely work this time!

I'm sorry but people that think this way tend to also think having money is some morality signal and not one of a massive personality defect (greed).

jrm45• 5 months ago

It's emphatically not "the wrong approach," and it's exceedingly weird when everyone makes things like this an "either/or."

Do BOTH, when possible.

octoclaw• 5 months ago

The real issue is that mandatory registration doesn't actually stop scammers. It stops hobbyist developers and small open source projects.

Scammers will use stolen identities or shell companies. They already do this on the Play Store itself. The $25 fee and passport upload haven't prevented the flood of scam apps there.

Meanwhile F-Droid's model (build from source, scan for trackers/malware) actually provides stronger guarantees about what the app does. No identity check needed because the code speaks for itself.

The permission-based approach someone mentioned above makes way more sense. If your app wants to read SMS or intercept notifications, sure, require extra scrutiny. But a simple calculator app or a notes tool? That's just adding friction for no security benefit.

jeroenhd7• 5 months ago

The permission problem also affects normal apps. Things like KDE Connect quickly become useless without advanced permissions, for instance.

No permission system can work as well as a proper solution (such as banks and governments getting their shit together and investing in basic digital skills for their citizens).

rm30• 5 months ago

Registration just creates friction for legitimate developers (thousands) while bad actors simply rotate shell companies and fake/stolen IDs.

This conflates identity verification with criminal deterrence, they're not the same thing.

nickorlow6• 5 months ago

Yeah, Google is terrible at validating developers are non-malicious on google play. plenty of fake/malicious/garbage apps make it through the filter.

UncleMeat5• 5 months ago

Friction does matter. Yes, criminals will create fake accounts with stolen IDs and stolen credit cards. But creating 1,000s of these is hard. Creating polymorphic banking trojans is simple.

I don't know if this trade off is worth it, but the idea that it won't affect this abuse at all is false.

array_key_first10• 5 months ago

If you can convince someone over the phone to install malware thru a million "don't do this" screens, you can convince them to just give you their login credentials. Which is both easier, cheaper, and, I imagine, more effective.

tavavex• 5 months ago

The thing that everyone here ignores is that the friction isn't just for safety. It's by design. For some reason, everyone is giving Google as much benefit of the doubt as possible. But no, they want to drive out small developers in general, and this is just one piece of the puzzle. Google has already put up unrelated barriers to publishing apps on Google Play, required every app developer to dox themselves to every user (meanwhile Apple is far more permissive and allows an opt-out for non-commercial apps), they downrank apps by small developers, use alternate UX that disincentivizes installing lesser known apps, put up big scary warnings like "This app isn't installed often" or "Fewer people engage with this app" on the pages of those apps. The only explanation is that they want more money and less upkeep and moderation with the pesky small developers, and the real money-makers are the big corporate apps. They're recreating "the rich get richer" in their microcosm.

EmbarrassedHelp• 5 months ago

The problem with mandatory developer registration, is that it gives Google and Governments the ability to veto apps.

It would not be unsurprising for a government to tell Google they must block any VPN apps from being installed on devices, and Google using the developer requirements to carry out the ban.

criddell4• 5 months ago

The problem with mandatory developer registration, is that it gives Google and Governments the ability to veto apps.

Don't they already have that power?

nickorlow6• 5 months ago

You can download any APK you like on the internet and run it without google/gov getting in the way

mhitza• 5 months ago

No, that is one reason why they are pushing for these changes.

aftergibson• 5 months ago

No judgement whatsoever, but for almost everyone they too will think, no big deal you only install software through stores right? Nothing changes for them, in fact they can't conceive of an alternative anymore.

OutOfHere2• 5 months ago

It's worse than that. Google will be able to track who's using a particular app because it has to be installed the official way. This means for example that anyone who has installed an ICE Tracking app will be reported to the government and perhaps added to a terrorist list.

sunaookami• 5 months ago

No you can still install APKs offline but they have to be signed (likely enforced by Google Play Services). Not to mention you can still install unisgned APKs like before with adb. Which doesn't make this any better of course.

dsl2• 5 months ago

Dear Undersigned,

I have an APK I would like you to install on your personal phones. No, I won't tell you who I am.

Please let me know when you are comfortable with this.

bigstrat20038• 5 months ago

Nice strawman. People want the ability to decide for themselves whether or not to install some APK, they are not saying every APK under the sun is trustworthy.

dsl2• 5 months ago

It is a simplification, not a strawman.

If you want to make the decision to install Hay Day, the user should be able to know that it is the Hay Day from Supercell or from Sketchy McMalwareson.

99.9% of apps should have no issue with their name being associated with their work. If you genuinely need to use an anonymously published app, you will still be able to do that as a user.

nickorlow6• 5 months ago

If I want to run a piece of software on my phone, I shouldn't need to go ask google whether they're cool with it

mixologic• 5 months ago

This is already true if you want to run a piece of software on an iPhone, on MacOS, on Windows, on any video game console.

exe342• 5 months ago

No.

zem• 5 months ago

sure, point me to the fdroid page for it

pona-a4• 5 months ago

Or at point me to a git repo.

jhasse7• 5 months ago

Sure thing, as long as it doesn't require any permissions. I have installed multiple apks on my phone from unknown people. Note that Google's requirement is also for completely permissionless apps like games.

exe342• 5 months ago

Does anyone know if this will affect Lineage OS with root?

jech• 5 months ago

As far as I know, it's implemented in the proprietary part of Android (Google Mobile Services, GMS), so it won't affect LineageOS users as long as they don't install the GMS.

iamnothere14• 5 months ago

Just here to register my disapproval of this, and to remind everyone that you should support Linux phones if you’re against it. Or Graphene OS, at the very least, even though this still supports Google due to the requirement for a Pixel phone.

Also, I’m going to coin a new term for the recurring names that I see promoting this kind of thing here: “safety fascists.” Safety fascists won’t sleep until there is a camera watching every home, a government bug in every phone, a 24/7 minder for every citizen. For your safety, of course.

I think I may hate safety fascists more than I hate garden variety fascists. That’s an accomplishment!

btreesOfSpring• 5 months ago

Would rather a more robust and distributed app store system that figures out how to police these edge cases of fraud rather than one vendor (Apple or Google) whose monopolies push developers into subscriptionware across the board. Something more akin to how internic moved from one domain name registrar to what we have today, chock full of competition and new top level domains.

It feels like independent development on devices has slowed in recent years. More stores appealing to different developer models/tools and monetization strategies please.

pserwylo• 5 months ago

Many people online and in person telling me "Google backed down" or "Google has an advanced flow" are typically referring to these two statements from Google staff:

Based on this feedback and our ongoing conversations with the community, we are building a new advanced flow that allows experienced users to accept the risks of installing software that isn't verified. [0]
Advanced users will be able to"Install without verifying," but expect a high-friction flow designed to help users understand the risks. [1]

Firstly - I am yet to see "ongoing conversations with the community" from Google. Either before this blog post or in the substantial time since this blog post. "The community" has no insight into whether any such "advanced flow" is fit for purpose.

Secondly - I as an experienced engineer may be able to work around a "high-friction flow". But I am not fighting this fight for me, I am fighting it for the billions of humans for whom smart phones are an integral part of their daily lives. They deserve the right to be able to install software using free, open, transparent app stores that don't require signing up with Google/Samsung/Amazon for the privilege of: Installing software on a device they own.

One example of a "high friction flow" which I would find unacceptable if implemented for app installation on Android is the way in which browsers treat invalid SSL certificates. If I as a web developer setup a valid cert, and then the client receives an invalid cert, this means that the browser (which is - typically - working on behalf of the customer) is unable to guarantee that it is talking to the right server. This is a specific and real threat model which the browser addresses by showing [2]:

* "Your connection is not private"

* "Attackers might be trying to steal your information (for example, passwords, messages or credit cards)"

* "Advanced" button (not "Back to safety")

* "Proceed (unsafe)" link

* "Not secure" shown in address bar forever

In this threat model, the web dev asked the browser to ensure communication is encrypted, and it is encrypted with their private key. The browser cannot confirm this to be the case, so there is a risk that a MITM attack is taking place.

This is proportionate to the threat, and very "high friction". I don't know of many non-tech people who will click through these warnings.

When the developer uses HSTS, it is even more "high friction". The user is presented all the warnings above, but no advanced button. Instead, on Chromium based browsers they need to type "thisisunsafe" - not into a text box, just randomly type it while viewing the page. On Firefox, there is no recourse. I know of very few software engineers who know how to bypass HSTS certificate issues when presented with them, e.g. in a non-prod environment with corporate certs where they still want to bypass it to test something.

If these "high friction" flows were applied to certified Android devices each time a user wanted to install an app from F-Droid - it would kill F-Droid and similar projects for almost all non-tech users. All users, not just tech users, deserve the right to install software on their smart phone without having to sign up for an "app store" experience that games your attention and tries to get you to install scammy attention seeking games that harvest your personal information and flood you with advertisements

Hence, I don't want to tell people "Just install [insert non-certified AOSP based project here]". I want Android to remain a viable alternative for billions of people.

[0] https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/11/android-de...

[1] https://x.com/matt_w_forsythe/status/2012293577854930948

[2] https://wrong.host.badssl.com/

cyanydeez• 5 months ago

When do we think PWA and WebRTC will be attacked and degraded as insecure?

tsoukase• 5 months ago

Banning apps installation outside PlayStore will be a disaster for power-ish users and will start a fight between Google and community. I abandoned rooting my devices because I could achieve all I wanted through apps (mostly ad- and nag-freedom, it's impossible to be online without ad blocking). But all these were downloaded as APKs. I cannot imagine how the first day without these will be.

WarmWash• 5 months ago

The judge told Google that Apple is not anti-competitive because Apple has no competitors on it's platform (this all stemming from the Epic lawsuits).

Google listened.

Blame the judge for one of the worst legal calls in recent history. Google is a monopoly and Apple is not. Simple fix for Google...

Same comment I made a few days ago, I feel it bears repeating as much as possible until it's really driven home how detrimental and uninformed that decision was.

pas6• 5 months ago

Sorry, which exact ruling are you referring to? How did the court arrived at this finding (that seems irrelevant, false)?

kodebach4• 5 months ago

It is a non-sensical ruling. But IIRC the reason was basically that while Apple and Google did basically the same shit, only Google kept a written record of their monopolistic behaviour, so only Google was found guilty.

However, there is a relevant court case here. The one about Samsung's "Auto Blocker" (https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/07/samsung-and-epic-gam...). Epic Games sued because Samsung made it too hard to install apps from "untrusted" sources. This may be a reason why Google is now trying to make the process more difficult on the developer side instead.

andyferris2• 5 months ago

There were parallel anti-competitive behavior cases brought against Apple and Google.

Apple was deemed not to be anticompetitive in app stores because there was no existing market of app stores on iOS. Google was more open in allowing other app stores, but deemed anticompetitive by discouraging their use relative to the Play store.

The irony is the more open player was deemed more anticompetitive. OP is saying Google is “fixing” their anticompetitive behavior by eliminating alternative app stores entirely.

andyferris2• 5 months ago

Like many things in the US, this should be settled by congress not judges.

Things that everyone relies on for life are generally regulated by law. Telecom platforms for instance. I’d say the mandatory software platform I need for my bank, drivers license, daily communication, etc should be in this bucket.

The EU declaring both Apple and Google gateway platforms is a much better approach. Congress is abdicating its responsibility to craft the legal frameworks for equal access in the modern age.

thegrim33• 5 months ago

"Like many things in the US, this should be settled by congress"

The US government is by design supposed to be as minimal as possible, and the laws affecting you kept as local as possible. We're not supposed to have a "the government" that's the same as EU governments. "The federal government should make laws" should be an absolute last resort. When you say "congress is abdicating its responsibility", I'd like you to point to where in the constitution it says that congress has such responsibilities.

redbell• 5 months ago

Same comment I made a few days ago..

This! I was about to reply that you have already posted this comment four days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47092480

arjie2• 5 months ago

If I'm being honest, I suspect this

Disproportionate impact on marginalized communities and controversial but legal applications

applies more to the elderly in third-world countries who are constantly scammed through fraudulent side-loaded apps than it does to hackers who want to install whatever software they want but do not want to use a non-Google AOSP distribution.

jdlyga• 5 months ago

To be honest, if both Android and iOS were walled gardens, I'd choose iOS every time. I choose Android specifically because of its openness. But if that weren't the case, I'd prefer the smoother UX and stronger Apple ecosystem.

singpolyma32• 5 months ago

You're welcome to it I suppose. As someone forced to use iOS for the past year I'm still waiting to find any smooth UX or strong ecosystem...

asim• 5 months ago

I think we're about to see an explosion in "mini apps". It's taken 10+ years for us to catch up to WeChat and China but this regulation and other issues are going to block a lot of innovation and we're better off surfacing tiny PWA or SPA like apps that get loaded in native apps or we just do away with that entirely. The time has come.

TheJoeMan• 5 months ago

Elon's vision for the X "everything" app. It's great for them, now every single thing you do has the full gamut of privacy permissions. Playing a "mini-game"? Full accurate GPS coordinates available to it because you also have the ride-hailing "mini-app".

TZubiri2• 5 months ago

If I may advocate for the non HN partisan position here.

Let's consider that Google's Android was and is a huge improvement in security in terms of OS design (even if inspired by iOS) over the previous incumbent (let's call Windows that). That difference in security still exists today (probably due to Window's Backwards Compatibility prioritization, and its later positioning in the market as a cheap powertool (cheap compared to iOS, powertool compared to android).

That security advantage, by the way, was not just the result of initial design, but it required a lot of maintenance, in the form of the 'Play Store' App Store equivalent (at no cost to the user no less).

All this to say that let's consider this context, and consider what alternatives are proposed.

1- The windows 'install whatever you want model' (Now with OS approved certificates): As mentioned, worse, with almost no sandboxing. 2- Linux package managers + install whatever you want: Valid model for powerusers and programmers, not really relevant for massive personal computing. 3- Keeping the old Android system: This would imply simply ignoring the problem of growing professional and untouchable malicious actors that seem to be growing in power with the advent of anonymous financial tech. Is this the actual proposal? Do nothing about the problem? Pretend there is no problem? I don't think the problem is necessarily malware, but to take a specific example, suppose a Casino from Isle of Man is allowing underaged and users from jurisdictions where it is illegal. Regardless of whether you think this is ok, or debatable or it depends on the circumstances. Isn't the ask to identify the developer rather trivial? Just a little bit of paperwork, you want to be a developer? Install code that someone else will use? Put your name in it, have skin in the game.

I think there's also a contradiction between the need for developer privacy and user privacy. Most HN users are privacy-sensitive. Well I propose there's a tradeoff between the privacy of the consumer and the producer. In order to provide privacy and rights to the user, the producer needs to come forward. There's no way to have the cake and eat it too, if both producer and consumer are shy, they will never find each other, if both producer and consumer stay anonymous, they won't trust each other, if both producer and consumer stay anonymous, they don't give any guarantees to the other party that they won't go rogue.

You know this if you've tried to start a business, you can either put your face, your name, register with the state, put your actual address. Or you can use an anonymous brand, a Registered Agent Address, etc... The latter is a harder sell than the former, and you only don't notice it if you are completely absorbed in your own world and cannot put yourself in the shoes of your customer.

tl;dr: Google has an impeccable data security track record. And User/Developer privacy is a tradeoff. Google is right to protect user privacy and not developer privacy.

atlgator• 5 months ago

"Don't be evil" → "Don't be evil without registering first and uploading your government ID."

The most telling detail is the sequencing. Google spent years in court arguing Android is open to fend off antitrust regulators, won key battles on that basis, and is now quietly closing the door they swore under oath was permanently propped open. The antitrust defense was the product roadmap's cover story. And framing this as security is particularly rich from the company whose own Play Store routinely hosts malware that passes their review. The problem they're solving isn't "unverified developers distribute harmful apps" — it's "unverified developers distribute apps we can't monetize or control."

eqvinox• 5 months ago

Can someone explain to me why Google's plans don't collide with the EU DMA? They're locking down the platform, that's what the DMA is supposed to prevent, I thought.

schmorptron• 5 months ago

Before this LLM age the solution would've been to make the user solve a leetcode problem to access a developer mode.

ChoGGi• 5 months ago

Hey Google, how about you clear all the malware from the play store then work on sideloading?

wernsey• 5 months ago

Google's concerns about security rings hollow to me. I believe it is strictly to exercise more control over the platform.

The appeals to people in Southeast Asia being scammed reminds me of a blog by Cory Doctorow last year: Every complex ecosystem has parasites [1]

The gist of it is that technology can be useful, but that usefulness comes with a price: sometimes bad actors are going to commit fraud or other undesirable actions.

As an example, you can reduce the amount of banking app scams to 0% by simply denying any banking apps on phones. But because of banking apps' usefulness we're not going to do that, so there will be some non-zero risk that you will get scammed.

As a technical user I chose Android for its usefulness, accepting that there may be a (minute) chance that I get scammed, but it is a risk I am willing to take, and Google will unilaterally take this choice away from me.

Still, I don't believe Google's security concerns are sincere, so I think I just wasted my time typing all of this

[1] https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/24/hermit-kingdom/

pbnjeh• 5 months ago

1) As I saw Rossman recommend the other day, once Android phones are locked down, just get an iPhone. I’ve had a Pixel 8 Pro and was considering the upcoming 11. If this lockdown goes through, I guess not.

2) I hope the lockdowns don’t strangle tethering. My other consideration is to use whatever phone for calls, texts, and “secure” apps. The rest I’ll do on an unrestricted device that just uses the phone as a data connection. More crap to carry, but crap that does what I want and need and not what “they” insist upon.

P.S. And that may mean spending less on future phones. Especially if I also switch my higher quality camera image needs to a real camera. Sigh, yet more physical crap, but I’m pissed enough to do it, and then each individual device would be less of a feature compromise than what a phone provides — other than size and portability, which are indeed quite significant.

Open Letter to Google on Mandatory Developer Registration for App Distribution

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