The giant Google took a radical decision by deciding on Thursday to remove the application from the Teen Encounter site from its store, the Play Store, for ” non-compliance with the rules “.
Already classified in the list of applications prohibited for those under 18, Teen Encounter has just disappeared from the Google Play Store. The American giant deleted the app from its store this Thursday, August 24, when it is suspected of hosting child criminals there. According to Google, the application, which was not present on the App Store, broke its rules.
An application for teenagers, but open to 13-25 year olds
Launched in 2022, the Teen Encounter application is officially no longer available on any Google mobile, our colleagues from BFM Tech & Co. Taken from the site of the same name, it initially allowed minors and adults to get in touch and exchange views, this one being reserved for 13-25 year olds, an age range that immediately raises questions.
Except that the application, like the website, seems to be plagued by pedocrime, many teenagers having found that they should not spend more than a few minutes on the two platforms to receive messages of a sexual nature.
And it is probably for this reason, without saying it in its terms, that Google decided to remove the application from the Play Store. The company refers to a ” violating app store policies “. She had already marked the app with the label “Pegi-18”, which prohibits it to minors.
The government sounded the alarm
The State got involved, since the Minister Delegate for Digital himself, Jean-Noël Barrot, had announced that he had seized the public prosecutor, about reports relaying the presence of potential sex offenders on the website.
There are two things left to know. First, if the application is no longer accessible and therefore no longer downloadable from the Play Store, it remains usable for those who have already installed it on their smartphone. If Google showed an app to ” over 10,000 downloads from its shop, Rencontre adolescent would have a total of around 300,000 users.
As for the website, created in 2006, it is still accessible. He should not suffer any consequences from this short-term banishment. The principle of creating a tool allowing people of all ages to exchange remains, as the police point out, legal.
Source : BFM Tech & Co
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