This isn’t an official proposal or anything of structured substance. It is more about a few thoughts on how Google can lock down the Wild West Android Market to better serve its constituents.

I’ll just bullet point a few ideas. I’d love to hear more and will make this a living post if comments provide better guidelines.

1. Keep a developer score
2. Apps w/ a high dev score can go into an immediate release [as it is now] or into a review queue
3. Apps w/ a low dev score are forced to go through a review process

That’s it for the curation. Now, how is this score calculated.

1. Verified developers
   1. Microsoft is Microsoft. Verify they are truly Microsoft and you know you don’t have to worry about spam/virus apps.
   2. Allow developers to submit documentation to validate them [not required]
      1. This is like the Apple and Blackberry process but is optional. If you validate yourself, you gain extra points.
2. Sponsorship by validated developers
   1. Microsoft has employees. They could validate their employees through sponsorship.
   2. If a sponsored developer sponsors someone and they blow it, the sponsored developer loses points. This makes the sponsors carefully choose who they sponsor.
3. Average app rating
   1. This is a smaller portion of the score but is a factor. [ex – if my 5 apps have an average rating of 4.5 stars, that adds weight to my viability]
   2. The formula needs to take into consideration the number of votes. A 5 star app with 5 votes is not the same as a 5 star app with 1,000 apps.

Those are just a few suggestions. How better could this be handled to provide a cleaner, safer experience on Android?