It’s a security feature. They’ve had this feature for more than a decade [1].
It allows them to remotely remove any malicious app from Android devices without any user intervention.
1: https://www.computerworld.com/article/2752902/google-remotel...
Worse than that, I've had it unilaterally block legitimate third-party apps I've installed from F-Droid. Then since I've disabled it, it constantly nags me to re-enable it so it can re-delete my third-party apps. If you want to talk about anti-competitive, Play "Protect" should be where you start.
Re:Epic vs. Google: Google Loses
by Psychotherapist on Tuesday December 12, 2023 @12:49AM
(#38609983)
In my experience Google Play Protect can be disabled, and shows a warning an app might be "Harmful" and sometimes prompts to Uninstall or Ignore the warning, afaik no unprompted uninstalls
That sounds horrible. Why can a store decide to delete an app with no prior notice?
But it does seem Google has given more freedom to other apps to install apps. I guess it comes down to if that's still too many clicks or too fear mongering to count as "competitive".