Google bans Chinese developer DO Global for being a click factory -

Google, after the BuzzFeed and other security researchers, discovered that a Chinese app developer is involved in an ad fraud as well as abusing the user permissions, bans the app developer from its Google Play Store along with automatically removing dozens of their apps.

DO Global:-

The name of the Chinese developer which gets banned is DO global which is also partially owned by the company Baidu. They were found to be involved in producing fake ad clicks in order to generate revenue among many of their other fraudulent practices.

Google said in a statement, “We take our responsibility to protect users and advertisers seriously, and invest in tools and resources to fight fraud and abuse globally. We actively investigate malicious behavior, and when we find violations, we take action, including the removal of a developer’s ability to monetize their app with AdMob or publish on Play.”

Although Google has not publically announced that they are banning the DO Global, it is still highly believed that the report from BuzzFeed is highly accurate.

The security researchers found at least 6 of such apps that were marred with code that was being used for fake ad clicking. This code would run even in the background when the app was being kept closed by a user.

Previously, DO Global has over 100 apps listed on the Google Play Stare with many of these being listed under different developer names like “Pic Tools Group.”

According to the latest report from BuzzFeed, nearly 46 of these apps are now long gone from Play Store.

Other Fraudulent apps:-

While this is a huge controversy in fraudulent cases for Google, it is certainly not the first one too when the tech giant has to remove a large batch of fraudulent apps from its Play Store due to violations. Back in January of 2018, nearly 60 games were deleted by Google after security researchers found out about a malicious bug inside these game apps that would display porn ads. Majority of these games were targeted for the children.