Google’s Podcasts app has been downloaded over 500 million times, but only 4% of U.S. podcast listeners use the platform. As of April 2, the service will be discontinued for U.S. users, Google says, potentially leaving millions needing to migrate their podcast subscription data. Unfortunately, this process can be confusing and may expose users to scammers and credential stealers. Therefore, it’s essential to know how to migrate your podcast subscription data safely to another service.
03/31 updates below. This article was originally published on March 30.
U.S. Google Podcasts App Users To Lose Service Access April 2
Perhaps surprisingly, given its 500 million downloads, Google’s Podcasts app has come to the end of the road. Not for everyone just yet, but as far as U.S. users are concerned, the service will cease on April 2. Although other users will still be able to listen to podcasts using the app, those based in the U.S. have been getting in-app reminder notifications that time is running out both to listen and migrate their subscription data.
The Google Podcasts app is being discontinued on April 2
The announcement of the service closure was first published by the YouTube team in a statement dated September 26, 2023. This said that with an increasing level of investment in podcasts on the YouTube Music platform, which it claimed will make it a “better overall destination for fans and podcasters alike with YouTube-only capabilities across community, discovery and audio/visual switching.”
How To Migrate Your Subscription Data To YouTube Music
Google has published a help guide to ensure that migrating subscription data from Google Podcasts to YouTube Music is as pain-free as possible. Users of the app in the U.S. should have received an in-app notification prompting them to read the guidance and act before July.
Full details are included on the Google Podcasts migration help pages, but to migrate to YouTube Music the basic steps are:
- Select the export subscriptions option displayed at the top of the Google Podcasts app screen.
- Select Export to YouTube Music.
- In the YouTube Music app select transfer and continue.
Google has warned users that not all podcasts will be available in YouTube Music, but they can be saved by using the RSS feed link from the show in question.
Migrating your subscription data to a platform other than YouTube Music is a little more complicated and requires the user to download an Outline Processor Markup Language file or by way of the Google Takeout function. Precise instructions can be found in the help document itself.
App Closures And Migration Needs Increase Cybersecurity Risk
The fact that Google is closing yet another service used by millions of people apart is not good news for Google Podcasts users from a security perspective. Bad actors, be they scammers or credential-stealing hackers, thrive in such moments. Cybercriminals exploit the confusion that, despite the best efforts of Google and YouTube, surrounds a service closure when an app no longer works and users are desperate to save their data in a couple of ways.
Firstly, there’s the risk of fake Google Podcasts apps being made available outside of Google Play. Links to these get distributed through emails, messages and posts to forums. The only reason for creating a fake app is to execute a malicious act, most commonly to add users to a botnet used for criminal activity or to steal user credentials, in this case, a valuable Google Account, for illicit gain.
Secondly, there’s the danger that criminals will use any last-minute rush to migrate podcast subscription data, although users have until July to do this. This could mean people searching for information get directed to malicious sites. There could also be an increase in phishing emails targeting Google Podcasts users with links to supposed help and support.
Be careful out there if you are a Google Podcasts app user.
03/31 update: Although it’s only U.S. users who will be impacted by the closure of the Google Podcasts app for now, the rest of the world will likely follow before the end of the year. And that could be bad news for those users based in the EU thanks to the Digital Markets Act which could make the security landscape even trickier to traverse when it comes to avoiding malicious apps. The DMA will mean that both Google and Apple will have to allow side-loaded apps, those that come from outside of official app stores, which has been declared a security risk by many experts.
The DMA will reduce the effectiveness of the security mechanisms that Google and Apple provide, a spokesperson for mobile application and API security specialists Approove, says, arguing that it will become harder to prevent:
- The theft of app intellectual property and reverse engineering.
- The creation of illegal copies of apps, those that are cloned, modified or copied.
- The manipulation of apps at runtime as the environments they run in can be hacked, rooted, instrumented, and manipulated to interfere with the operation of an app.
Approove’s CEO, Ted Miracco, says that, in partnership with PreEmptive, its security solution is “paving the way for enhanced security solutions that thrive beyond the traditional confines of Google and Apple’s ecosystems, aligning with the EU’s vision for a more open and competitive app landscape as outlined in the Digital Markets Act.”
Google, for its part, has stated that when it comes to third-party apps and app stores, the DMA requires “gatekeeper operating systems” to allow users access to these. Something Google points out that it already enables Android users to do. “Android users have always been free to download third-party apps and app stores to their devices,” Google says, “and third-party apps and app stores can be preinstalled on Android devices through agreements with Android manufacturers.”
TechCrunch reports that there will be additional fees payable by developers using the ‘external offers’ program, including an ongoing services fee of 17% for in-app purchases and 7% for subscriptions, to cover services such as “parental controls, security scanning, fraud prevention, and continuous app updates.”
