Reply #37: Actually, they don't have that ability.

[Xithras]

There is no provision within the Android OS that permits Google (or anyone else) to simply search your phone. What Google does (as does Apple, Amazon, and every other retailer online) is record what apps you're downloading from the Marketplace.

Google pulled up the Phone ID's of every phone that had downloaded the malware from the Marketplace, and sent DELETE commands to those handsets to remove those apps. If the app didn't exist, the command would be ignored. If it did, the app would be removed.

Because smartphones are becoming unbiquitous, it's important to understand that neither Apple or Google has the ability to remotely "search" your phone for anything. Yet, anyway.