Techniques involving detection of misuse of digital licenses pertaining to application use. An identification of unsigned applications or other use-protected applications enabled for use at a user device is obtained. The identification of such applications is directed to a licensing authority to seek digital license renewal for using the applications. A renewed digital license is received if the provided identification of use-protected applications corresponds to what is authorized by the licensing authority for use at the user device. In other embodiments, verification information may be provided to protect the identification of unsigned applications from tampering, such as information indicative of whether the identification of unsigned applications originated at the user device in which the use-protected applications are used, and indicative of whether the identification of the unsigned applications is a copy of a previous identification of the unsigned applications.