Google Has Banned Almost 600 Apps For Pushing “Disruptive” Ads

guest · Feb 20, 2020

Google Has Banned Almost 600 Apps For Pushing “Disruptive” Ads
“This is an invasive maneuver resulting in poor user experiences.”
February 20, 2020
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/google-bans-android-apps-disruptive-ads

Google has removed close to 600 Android apps and banned their developers from the Play store and its ad networks as part of a massive crackdown on ad fraud and “disruptive” mobile ads.

One of the biggest developers banned from the Play store and Google’s ad networks was Cheetah Mobile, a publicly traded Chinese company that BuzzFeed News revealed in November 2018 had been engaging in ad fraud.
The following December, Google removed one of the offending apps but allowed Cheetah to continue offering other apps in the Play store.

Per Bjorke, Google’s senior product manager for ad traffic quality, told BuzzFeed News the removed apps, which had been installed more than 4.5 billion times, primarily targeted English-speaking users and were mainly from developers based in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and India
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“We give them a notice and a warning [the first time it’s detected] and allow them to correct the problem,” Bjorke said. “And if it’s a repeat offense, then it will gradually be a stronger reaction.”
Google has begun to refund brands whose ads were displayed in disruptive ways. “We can confirm that we have identified affected advertisers and refunded the majority thus far,” Bjorke said.
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Google: Disruptive ads enforcement and our new approach

guest · Mar 9, 2020

Google has removed almost all Cheetah Mobile apps from the Play Store
They won’t be missed
February 27, 2020
https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/02/27/cheetah-mobile-apps-disappeared-play-store/

Cheetah Mobile has earned a reputation as a dishonest, destructive Android development studio that occasionally buys up successful apps and turns them into data-collecting, IAP-infested cash machines. The company has also clashed with Play Store policies more than once, but it always managed to find its way back onto the platform. It looks like Google got tired of this game and seems to have decided to ban the developer's products.

Buzzfeed News reports that the apps disappeared right when Google published a blog post stating it had removed 600 apps engaging in ad fraud and displaying disruptive apps, so it's highly probable Cheetah Mobile was one of the developers hit by the action.
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Cheetah Mobile is trying to make the best out of the situation. Its website that used to link to Play Store listings of its apps now offers all of its apps as APKs [...]
Downloading these apps outside of the Play Store is probably even more dangerous than getting them from the platform, as you won't enjoy the same level of protection from frauds or malware.
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guest · Mar 9, 2020

AnTuTu apps removed from Google Play Store over Cheetah Mobile ties
March 9, 2020
https://www.slashgear.com/antutu-ap...play-store-over-cheetah-mobile-ties-09612671/

Apps get kicked out of the Google Play Store regularly for this or that policy violation. While some do end up being erroneous, most are valid cases of misbehaving or downright malicious apps.
Few of those have had the audacity to return and repeat their offenses as much as Chinese app developer Cheetah Mobile [...]
Unfortunately, that seems to have included one of the most popular benchmarking tools, whether or not it’s actually warranted.

Since the modus of such wayward developers has been to publish apps under different names, the Android maker has also yanked out any and all apps associated with the company. It turns out, one of those is AnTuTu, makers of popular benchmark tools for mobile devices.
In a statement to Android Police, AnTuTu strongly refutes this association with Cheetah Mobile even as it admits to the latter being an investor.

It is still unknown whether that explanation will fly with Google. It is even more unknown whether AnTuTu itself is free from any of Cheetah Mobile’s malicious software and plugins at all.
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Right now, the only way to get AnTuTu on Android is to install an APK from the developer’s website, doubling the risks.
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guest · Jul 6, 2020

Google really, really, REALLY doesn't want you to install AnTuTu
July 6, 2020
https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/...lly-really-doesnt-want-you-to-install-antutu/

Google's Play Protect service, which helps protect you from accidentally sideloading malware, is now blocking the installation of the benchmarking app AnTuTu. Google Chrome is also warning users that navigate to Antutu's official download page that the site contains "harmful apps." This news follows the application's removal from the Play Store earlier this year

The news was first spotted by Xataka Android, but we don't fully know why Google has stepped up its fight against AnTuTu specifically. The Play Protect warning claims that the app "can collect data that could be used to track you," [...] Both of these warnings can be circumvented, but they will probably be enough to stop most potential users from installing the app.
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Earlier this year, AnTuTu was kicked from the Play Store, seemingly as part of a massive culling of Cheetah Mobile-associated apps, and this new development is almost certainly related. Though AnTuTu CEO Zhao Chen claimed at that time that his company isn't related to Cheetah Mobile, he did admit that they are one of AnTuTu's shareholders.
It's technically possible that those more recent AnTuTu releases include malware of some kind, and Google is proactively doing what it can to block the installation of the app for users, but the warnings are a bit nebulous.

We've reached out to both Google and AnTuTu for more information regarding this change and precisely why Google is going to such efforts to block access to AnTuTu, but neither company has responded yet.
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guest · Aug 21, 2020

Fake clone apps run rampant on the Play Store following AnTuTu ban
August 20, 2020
https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/...mpant-on-the-play-store-following-antutu-ban/

Earlier this year, Google removed a number of applications from the Play Store, including multiple benchmark apps from AnTuTu. These apps allowed users to test device performance, but Google cracked down on the tools due to their association with the notorious Cheetah Mobile.

Since the removal in March, crowds of clones have popped up on the Google Play Store. A simple search for words like "antutu" and "benchmark" will pull up pages of results, with many of the apps listed straight up stealing the AnTuTu logo or changing it in minor ways.
We're not sure if Google is allowing these fakes to remain on the Play Store because they aren't violating the same policies that the original AnTuTu apps did, or because these apps just haven't been noticed by the Play Store team yet.
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We've reached out for comment, and will update this post with any additional details.
For now, the real AnTuTu app is available [...] I wouldn't recommend installing it, though — even looking past privacy concerns, benchmark apps don't accurately reflect real-world performance and aren't a very helpful metric for the average user.
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