News People Need

[responsivevoice_button voice=”UK English Female” buttontext=”Listen to Post”]

As the popularity of the messaging app known as ToTok seemed soaring, it is learnt that the tech giant Google has removed it from the Play Store for Android and other users. The reason it was given was that it is a spying tool released by the UAE Government that was meant to track the communications of the users along with getting other things like the location and social connections. Thus the tech giant was quick to remove it in December itself. However, the company after their primary investigation then reinstated the app in the Play Store. In the recent move, the company has once again removed the same without giving any reason to it.

It was the portal called 9to5Google, which was first to notice the same and report it to its readers stating that the messaging app ToTok has been pulled away once again. On the other side, Google has also confirmed this news to the other group called TechCrunch stating that it has removed the app but not the developer of the app from Google Play Store. Also,  Google has found out that the enforcement was not carried out in response to any external direction/request done on the same. Having said that this simply means the US government is not to be involved here rather to see Google choosing the app to get it removed the app on its own and the key reason is the for the policy violation.

As per the original reports of New York Times, ToTok was downloaded by millions of users both from Android and iOS based phones not just in the US but also in nations like the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Europe to name a few. The company, however, claims that the government in the Middle East has been looking out for data from the users who have downloaded the same or used the message app a lot. Thus with this, the users’ communication, relationship, movement, sound, image and appointments were tracked by the said government officials. Once Google planned to remove the app from the Google Play, it claims that the app has violated too many policies of the company. In Jan the website of ToTok then came up with the announcement for the users to download the app from it. 

They came up with the updated version which was not available at Google Play. These included the new dialog box along with giving away the request authorization to access and things like sync users’ contact list, and so one. Such updates are barely asked in the updates that come along with the app found in Google Play that talks a lot about it. Generally speaking, third party app intelligence companies like App Annie along with Sensor Tower are now able to clearly see the even lowly ranked applications. For instance, the App Annie’s charts the various track applications like a poorly ranked #1750 in any category. However, with its return, ToTok never was seen making things high — even in its home market of UAE.