Though Google is trying its level best to keep the Play Store free of malicious apps with Play Protect, constantly scanning through close to 2.6 billion apps, there sure are some apps which can fly under its radar. However, it seems even Google was unaware of what Cheetah Mobile and its associate company Kika Tech were up to right under their noses – ad click fraud.
However, things are not as rosy as they sound because app analytics firm Kochava, as reported by BuzzFeed, has exposed that around eight of the most popular apps from Cheetah Mobile and Kika Tech are exploiting its extensive set of Android permissions to run an ad-click fraud scheme, involving click flooding and click injection via its apps.
I’m sure you would have seen ads for one app appearing in another app (maybe inside Xiaomi’s stock apps), well, because it’s a common practice among developers. They’re marketing their app using an even popular app, with a larger active user base, to drive installs – for which they pay a referral bonus to the developer who gets them the install. Sounds simple, right?
In its shocking report, Kochava has identified eight apps from Cheetah, as well as Kika Tech, to be running ad clicking frauds. Listed below are the fraudulent apps:
Kochava reached out to both the companies and Kika Tech’s US general manager, Marc Richardson in a statement stated, “Kika Keyboard is a large, well-known app that helps its users communicate in many unique ways and we are extremely disappointed to learn about these flooding and injection practices. We appreciate you putting this to our attention.”
