Eight Android apps with 2 billion+ downloads are committing ad click fraud
Google's made considerable efforts over the years to reduce the amount of junk that pops up on the Play Store, but even with all of that hard work, some garbage still seeps through the cracks. On November 26, BuzzFeed News published a report outlining how eight Android apps on the Play Store are being used to commit click fraud with advertisements.
App analytics firm Kochava provided the details to BuzzFeed News, reporting that seven apps from Cheetah Mobile and one from Kika Tech "have been exploiting user permissions as part of an ad fraud scheme that could have stolen millions of dollars."
The offending apps and their respective downloads include the following:
- Clean Master (1 billion downloads)
- Security Master (540 million downloads)
- CM Launcher 3D (225 million downloads)
- Kika Keyboard (205 million downloads)
- Battery Doctor (200 million downloads)
- Cheetah Keyboard (105 million downloads)
- CM Locker (105 million downloads)
- CM File Manager (65 million downloads)
CM Locker and Battery Doctor were removed from the Google Play Store following BuzzFeed News's article, but all of the other ones are still available as per usual.
Kika and Cheetah Mobile have both tried to deny any wrongdoings on their part, with Kika claiming that malicious code was placed inside Kika Keyboard without its knowledge and Cheetah Mobile throwing the blame on third-party SDKs. However, Kochava isn't buying either of these excuses.
It's unclear at this time if Cheetah's other apps and Kika Keyboard will remain on the Play Store, but should anything change, we'll update this article accordingly.
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Joe Maring was a Senior Editor for Android Central between 2017 and 2021. You can reach him on Twitter at @JoeMaring1.