Google kind of, sort of, addresses Android Malware

I think the author missed the point a little bit:

"If you’re going to do that though, why should I need an update to keep the malware from doing anymore harm? Since Google is going to rip out the rotten programs anyway, wouldn’t it better to just get it over with rather than just block its functionality?"

I suspect that the 'software' being applied is a patch to prevent this sort of behavior from happening again. In short, it is the right move. It didn't read, to me at least, that they were blocking the one particular 'doHarmfulActivities()' API, rather, patching the bug that allowed harmful activities to be executed.

As for the fear of Google being able to remotely uninstall, I get that. I sort of share the notion, but the flip side, of course, is that I didn't know they had the feature, which means this is probably the first time it was executed. This is a good time for the feature to be executed.

Considering the high-profile invocations of the same method by Apple, I can definitely understand the worry that it COULD be abused, but so can anything. What matters more is that at least thus far, it hasn't been.