The term "remote kill switch" has such an insidious ring to it, like the explosive neck collar worn by Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Running Man, its head exploding remote idly thumbed by bored executives in Redmond or Cupertino.
In truth, the concept makes sense for mobile smartphones with their own app store. Since the approval process for a successful application store for smartphones can't be long, it's important for harmful (and, more importantly, legally troublesome) applications to be taken out of commission the second there is a known issue.
Consumers think that's all well and good when it comes to nuking malware from orbit - it is the only way to be sure, after all - but unfortunately, companies like Apple and Amazon have made enough poor decisions to be, at the very least, extremely wary of their judgment in actually hitting the remote kill switch.
For example, Apple is constantly being pressured by its wireless partner, AT&T, to pull apps that threaten their services with cheaper (or free) prices, and Amazon has unwisely killed books already purchased on users' Kindle devices without warning.
Now, according to Boy Genius Report, Microsoft will be getting into the game with its version of Apple's App Store or Google Marketplace, Marketplace for Mobile. Word has it that if an app is unapproved and removed from Marketplace, it will be pulled from all users' devices.
Does that seem overbroad to anyone else? Apple routinely pulls apps from the App Store but it doesn't disappear from your device. There's going to be a lot of controversy if Microsoft's kill switch policy is as broad as it seems in summary.
