There is an invisible war on the Play Store, with Google constantly removing all kinds of rogue apps that distribute malware, deploy phishing or fraud schemes, or offer apps for malicious use cases like stalking. Unfortunately, legitimate apps fall victim to these automated systems far too often, and developers rarely have a fair chance to appeal the decision, with only few humans involved in the process on Google’s end. The latest renowned app to fall victim to these automated processes is SD Maid, a well-regarded cleaning app that keeps your storage free from junk. It’s suspended under Google’s Stalkerware policy.

SD Maid developer “darken” took to Reddit to make the situation public. They explain that they received two emails in quick succession for both SD Maid 1 and SD Maid 2, stating that the apps were suspended and removed from the Play Store for violating Google’s “Stalkerware policy.” About 15 minutes after this, the company sent an additional email, terminating the associated 12-year-old developer account completely:

Reason for termination: We have identified a pattern of high risk or abuse associated with your Developer Account and are taking this action pursuant to Section 8.3/10.3 of Google Play’s Developer Distribution Agreement.

It’s mostly needless to say, but SD Maid doesn’t offer any features that would allow someone to stalk another person. The app is solely focused on cleaning phone storage from unnecessary cached files and other junk to free up storage and avoid resulting slowdowns.

The developer is entirely unsure what exactly could have triggered the automated termination, but a Redditor in the discussion has a theory. According to them, something similar happened to one of their apps, and it looks like Google took issue with a culmination of suspicious keywords in the description, with the automation not liking to see “friend,” “track,” and “monitor” in the description. They also speculate that this goes for any combination of “tracking” and “human,” “people,” “friend,” and more similar terms.

Looking at the app description of SD Maid, it does contain some keywords that could raise flags for an automated tool, with some potential keywords highlighted in the following quote:

SD Maid allows you to:

• Browse your whole device and manipulate files through a full-fledged file explorer.

• Remove superfluous files from your system.

• Manage installed user and system apps.

• Detect files formerly belonging to uninstalled apps.

• Search for files by name, content or date.

• Obtain a detailed overview of your devices storage.

• Optimize databases.

• Do actual app cleaning and remove expendable files, which supersedes what others may call ‘cache cleaning’.

• Detect duplicate pictures, music or documents, independent of name or location.

• Run tools automatically on a schedule or via widgets.

The only recent change the developer says they made to SD Maid 1 is a change of the target SDK to 33, which is what developers are required to do occasionally under Play Store rules.

Given that both the apps and the account are terminated, darken isn’t sure which route to take to appeal the decision. Google only offers to appeal either an app suspension or an account suspension, but not both at the same time.

A cached version of SD Maid 2’s Play Store listing

SD Maid is a staple service that’s been among the most recommended apps for an incredibly long time. Although it’s sometimes unclear if you should clear app cache on Android, many people swear by these tools that give them back some storage space, and SD Maid is among the best. The apps amassed more than 10 million downloads on the Play Store, with the original one responsible for the biggest bulk.

As darken notes on their Reddit post, another cleaner app was hit by a similar suspension about the same time as they were. The app supposedly also offers local cleaning services and only uses Google and Facebook ads, with no features that would allow a person to stalk another individual. Another developer joined the discussion to say that their Google account got suspended on similar grounds too, with Google citing a currently unpublished cleaner app as the culprit.

We’ve covered similar issues again and again. Google’s automated tools may do a good job most of the time, but legitimate developers caught in the middle of the Play Store cleanup process are routinely left without any help from Google, with their appeals usually in vain. We can only hope that Google will notice its error with SD Maid or come forward with a more logical explanation of this small-scale purge of cleaner apps on the Play Store.

We’ve reached out to Google for comment and will update the story when we hear back.

Thanks: Kieron