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[Update: Google's Response] Cheetah Mobile is accused of committing Ad Fraud in several apps
The company behind several extremely popular Android apps, Cheetah Mobile, has been accused of committing fraudulent activities with respect to ads.
With over 2.6 million applications to account for in the Play Store, Google is constantly at war with fraudulent and malicious apps plaguing their ecosystem. At the same time, Google tries to promote high-quality apps for users to enjoy, although sometimes the apps they select are of dubious quality. Cheetah Mobile is perhaps one of the most infamous development companies among our users because of their practice of collecting data on users and serving tons of sketchy advertisements. Their acquisition of QuickPic led many XDA members to scramble for an alternative to the once highly-recommended gallery app. But despite the poor quality of Cheetah Mobile's products, we never had any reason to suspect them of anything truly malicious - until now. The latest research from Kochava has provided evidence to BuzzFeed News that several Android apps from Cheetah Mobile, and one from Kika, are allegedly engaging in ad fraud.