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I know this is going to be shocking, but Cheetah Mobile may be involved in very dark transactions. According to the Kochava app badytics company, Cheetah Mobile and an badociated company called Kika Tech are using extended permissions in their Android apps to fraudulently claim commissions for application installations from advertisers . The eight apps detected by Kochava have over 2 billion downloads on the Play Store and about 700 million active users.
Seven potentially fraudulent apps come from Cheetah Mobile and you've probably heard of it before: Clean Master, Security Master, CM Launcher 3D, Battery Doctor, Cheetah Keyboard, CM Locker and CM File Manager. The latest app is Kika Tech's Kika Keyboard, which received an investment from Cheetah in 2016.
The way advertising platforms are pushing new apps is at the heart of the alleged scam. If you see an advertisement, you can click, download and install this app. Advertisers can pay up to $ 3 when they acquire a new user this way, but it's hard to pretend that the premium is a premium. When the app is opened for the first time, it performs a "rollback" to see where the last click comes from to award the bonus. The applications Cheetah and Kika apparently abuse their permissions to abuse this system.
The offending applications request permission to view and open your installed applications, so they simply monitor the installation of new applications. When you download something, apps look for ad rewards and send a fake click, even if they have never broadcast the ad to anyone. They also use their permissions to launch apps in order to make sure they receive the bonus. Kika Keyboard can even go further and monitor search queries in the Play Store to search for installation bonuses. This obviously concerns advertisers, but legitimate developers could also lose a legitimately earned installation fee.
When contacted about the apparent fraud, Kika stated that she was investigating the matter internally. Cheetah has attempted to blame third-party SDKs or ad networks, but Kochava points out that the SDK involved in click fraud is developed by Cheetah Mobile itself. These apps are popular, but I do not think I'm going out of the way to say that they're all awful, even without click fraud. There would be an uproar if Google banned Cheetah Mobile from the Play Store, but that may be what it should do if these claims prove accurate.
Cheetah Mobile has issued a new statement regarding these allegations. The company baderts both the powerlessness of its technical ability to carry out the fraud described above and further refutes the fact that advertising revenue generated by its internal SDK is a significant source of revenue.
In addition, law firm Rosen opened an investigation on behalf of Cheetah shareholders on the shares of the company and their corresponding impact on share prices. After the release of this report, Cheetah Mobile shares dropped to $ 5.42, before rebounding to $ 6.60. Depending on the outcome of this investigation, a clbad action may be brought.
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