Google earlier announced the Google Play Store for 2025.Safety Performance ReportData shows that with the assistance of AI, a total of 175 million malicious apps that violated policies were blocked last year.
Interestingly, this number is actually lower than the 236 million in 2024. Google explained that this does not mean that the protection is lax, but rather that it has introduced an "AI-driven multi-layered protection mechanism" that significantly raises the bar for app listing, causing malicious actors to back down before even attempting to release apps with specific intentions.
Importing generative AI, each app must pass through tens of thousands of security checks.
Google says that every app now has to go through more than 10000 security checks before it can be listed on the App Store, and the system continues to review it after it is listed.
The most crucial shift lies in Google's adoption of the latest generative AI models to assist human reviewers. AI is able to identify hidden malicious patterns in massive amounts of code and behavioral logs much faster.
In terms of personal data protection, Google successfully blocked 25.5 apps from excessively collecting sensitive user data in 2025. This number is also significantly lower than the 130 million apps in the previous year, showing that the front-end blocking mechanism is working.
In addition to blocking malware, Google has also taken steps to regulate the review ecosystem of its app stores. Last year, Google blocked a total of 1.6 million spam reviews and ratings, successfully preventing many apps from losing star ratings due to "review bombing."
Play Protect prevents "side-load" risks
On the device side, Android's built-in defense system, Google Play Protect, also delivered impressive results.
Play Protect identified over 2700 million new malicious apps last year, immediately warning users or blocking their operation. Google emphasizes that with its enhanced fraud protection mechanisms, Play Protect now covers 185 markets and 28 billion Android devices worldwide, and successfully blocked 2.66 million high-risk sideloading attempts (installing APKs through unofficial channels) in the past year.
A battle to protect platform commission rates under the guise of "security"?
However, behind this security report, Google also reveals a strong undercurrent of commercial and political maneuvering.
Google has long justified its relatively high commission rates on in-app purchases (commonly known as the Android tax) by emphasizing its massive investments in "app security and ecosystem maintenance."
This argument is currently facing serious challenges in Europe and other regions. EU regulators question the operating model of the Google Play Store.It still has a monopolistic nature.
Although Google began adjusting its pricing structure for developers using third-party payment channels last year, the EU recently accused Google of still not fully complying with the Digital Markets Act (DMA).
