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For a long time, the Play Store could be considered as the wild west of the app distribution, especially compared to Apple's inherently more restrictive App Store. Google, however, is working on improvements and is becoming more strict about the permissions of applications, among others. Nevertheless, we are back with another advertising fraud scheme even inside the store, in the wake of the survey conducted by Cheetah Mobile last year. Another Chinese application developer, DO Global, reportedly added code to its applications that automatically clicked on ads without users being aware of it.
BuzzFeed News first highlighted these results in collaboration with the Check Point and Method Media Intelligence security researchers. They discovered that the developer of the application in question was from the Chinese giant Baidu, become independent only last year. Its apps have generated more than 90 million downloads before Google deletes the ads.
DO Global products are not very accurate. They reproduce all the features of the system, like the camera and the flashlight, or promise to clean your phone to make it faster, which will often slow down the phones. But look for yourself, these are the six applications removed: Selfie camera, Total Cleaner, Smart Cooler, RAM Master, AIO flashlight and Omni Cleaner.
There are two parts to this fraud. First of all, DO Global was not listed as a developer for most of these applications, but used an American parent company for publication on the Play Store, which gave the impression to users that They were installing an American product. Of course, this is against the policy of Google. Secondly, apps have been programmed to automatically click on ads, stealing money from advertisers who do not get any real user interaction with their offers. As it happened in the background while the screen is off, users may also have seen their battery deteriorate and their data bills soak up.
BuzzFeed News also mentions that many apps on the Play Store abuse non-transparent permissions and privacy policies to suck users' personal data, but this does not point to specific applications or developers.
We can only hope that Google continues to take more control of the Play Store and manage to impose on the application developers the protection policies of its customers, which the company had already begun to do. by demanding higher target APIs and by more closely monitoring the phone and SMS permissions.
Given the serious charges against DO Global, it was only a matter of time before seeing any response. And although Google has not yet made a full public statement, it seems the developer is banning outright.
BuzzFeed reports that dozens of applications associated with DO Global have already been purged from the Play Store and that others should follow. Although Google has not confirmed the number of applications it planned to remove, or if this constituted a formal ban on DO Global, it is exactly as well as a source insiders would have described the situation.
The tracking of these actions by Google may be an extreme response, but given the charges against DO Global, it would be difficult to argue that these are unjustifiable. In the end, Google has every interest in doing everything in its power to discourage developers from breaking their rules. This can be an attempt to show that even the top developers are not immune to any repercussions.
DO overall statement
In response to the original BuzzFeed article and subsequent publications of numerous publications, DO Global has published the statement below on its website. In this document, the company declares to accept Google's decision and the charges against it. DO Global claims to have launched an investigation, to review all of its applications and to promise to "strictly adhere to regulations" in the future.
Complete statement:
Last week, we noticed a series of reports on our applications by the media. We fully understand the seriousness of the allegations. As such, we immediately conducted an internal investigation into this case. We regret to note irregularities in the use by some of our products AdMob advertising. Given this, we understand and fully accept Google's decision. In addition, we actively cooperated with them by conducting a thorough review of each application involved.
We would like to thank the media, our partners and the public for their support. In the future, we will strictly comply with the regulations in force and will continue the comprehensive review of our products. Finally, during this process, we caused misunderstandings and great concern because of our inability to communicate in a timely manner and to provide complete information. We offer our sincere apologies.
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