Google has been actively removing certain Android apps after discovering they are involved in ad fraud and displaying “disruptive” mobile ads. According to a report, close to 600 Android apps have been removed from the Play Store and its ad networks. The developers of these apps have also been banned.
Out of that number, it was discovered that the biggest developer that Google banned was Cheetah Mobile. This is a publicly traded Chinese company that had been found guilty of engaging in ad fraud back in 2018. A year after its discovery, Google had removed one of its offending apps but allowed the developers to continue offering the other apps that they had launched. Today’s crackdown, however, changes things. Upon checking the Play Store, all of the 45 apps on Cheetah’s suite have been removed. Not only that, there are no active ads for sale for these apps in any of Google’s ad networks.
According to Google’s senior product manager for ad traffic quality, Per Bjorke, the removed apps had already been installed over 4.5 billion times. These apps targeted English-speakers primarily. They also discovered that the developers were based in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and India. Specifics about the banned apps (like its apps or developers) were not divulged. But the executive shared that many of these were games or utilities.
This isn’t the first time Google banned developers from the Play Store and its ad networks. Last year, it also banned CooTek, another publicly traded Chinese developer, from its channels.
Bjorke shared that the banned apps violated their disrupted ads policy. This policy prohibited developers from displaying ads when users are not using their apps and could result in “inadvertent clicks.” One such example is that the app displays a full-screen ad while users try to make a phone call on their device.
The executive shared:
“This is an invasive maneuver resulting in poor user experiences that disrupt key device functions like phone calls and GPS, causes inadvertent ad clicks, and wasted [money] for advertisers.”
Bjorke said that Google had already deployed new technology in late 2019 that automatically detected the apps that were violating its policies. This technology allowed them to identify many of the developers and apps that have been banned today.
To learn more about the announcement made by Google, visit their blog.
