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The Kochava analysis company discovered a sophisticated advertising fraud involving 7 Cheetah Mobile apps and a Kika Tech developer app. The apps for their existence have collected a huge number of downloads.
Cheetah Mobile is a Chinese company with several applications. Among the most popular, both accused of fraud, there are for example the Clean Master with over a billion downloads.
If any of the following applications are installed on your smartphone, uninstall them.
- Clean Master
- Security Master
- CM Launcher 3D
- Doctor Battery
- Guépard keyboard
- CM Locker
- CM File Manager
- Kika Keyboard
fraud
Developers can place ads on their apps to secure their revenue sources and cover their development costs. For many applications, ad serving can be removed, for example, for a single, often symbolic, fee. low.
An ad placed directly in the app can display promotions on products, services and other applications. If a user downloads an app through an app in the app, that is, when he clicks on a banner that redirects to Google Play, he downloads the app from d & # 39; here. The author of the original application who downloaded the application receives a commission. It ranges from $ 0.50 to $ 3.00.
This, of course, is not a problem. Experts from Kochava, however, revealed that Cheetah Mobile's apps called for unauthorized commission. Even to install applications that have nothing to do with Cheetah Mobile, which were installed from another mediation.
Apps abuse over-the-counter permissions granted by users during installation. I can control apps downloaded by users on their smartphone, their involvement in the ad system, and then use that information for unauthorized recovery charges.
Apparently, the applications have been developed internally to allow such unjustified commissioning. Kika Tech denied the allegations and said the practices were perpetrated without his knowledge. But other analyzes have shown that Kika Tech software was used for them.
Cheetah Mobile first accuses the third party development tools (SDK), but then denied it, as it has been shown that these tools were developed and owned by Cheetah Mobile.
Cheetah mobile
Cheetah Mobile is a Chinese company whose main purpose is to sell your user data. You can buy them YOU. For the moment, however, it has been shown to be acting in an unethical way and abusing user permissions to applications.
The already mentioned Clean Master, which has a large number of downloads, provides a good example. The application can access details of network connections, device history and installed applications, read your contacts, and access a storage or microphone.
However, many permissions are not needed to allow the application to clean the cache and to use other features arising from its nature. Google should review the apps and delete them if they confirm the non-malicious activity on Play.
A detailed report of the Kochava investigation was released by the American BuzzFeed server.
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