Google Activates Remote Kill Switch For The First Time

Posted by on Jun 25, 2010 | 5 Comments

We all know that any smart phone maker — like Google, Apple, or Microsoft — builds in a back door exclusively for the down-the-line removal of any unforeseen problems. But we smart phone consumers still find it a little fishy (and depressing) when such a backdoor is put to use, such as the case with Google in its Android recently.

Google unleashed its weapons this week upon a couple of apps that can prove disastrous to your device. Google announced that it removed two useless but still Terms of Service-infringing apps. Google does admit, however, that most of the users who downloaded these programs had deleted them already, and that this removal was more of a test of the remote application removal feature than was it a cleanup operation. Google has said that it will let the users know if the application is removed by sending a notification to the phone.

  • leftystrat

    It’s interesting that this is being put forward as a positive thing, yet received such bad press when Steve Jobs did it.

    Frankly, I don’t like it, and I’m a Droid owner.

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  • http://lockergnome.com/aaron Aaron Herman

    I don’t really get the big deal about them doing it. It’s their device, and aren’t they doing it for the good of the device?

  • Marc Draco

    “I don’t really get the big deal about them doing it. It’s their device, and aren’t they doing it for the good of the device?”

    It’s not their device – it’s ours.

    I don’t like the idea of anyone being able to control what I do with my hardware unless I specifically ask them to.

    Apple and Google are as bad as each other. I wish I could get an open OS (without some asshat having remote control) on either of these.

    Bring back smoke signals.