The Google Play store is filled with endless apps that people download to their devices every day. In order to get an app into the store, it has to go through an approval process that helps to ensure the app won’t cause any problems on the devices. Part of this process is a technology Google calls, ‘Bouncer’ and is meant to weed out software that detects potential ad fraud. Apparently this technology does not work as well as Google had hoped.
Google was notified by Check Point, a security company, that 41 apps on the app store downloaded data that triggered ad fraud actions.
Some of these apps have been around since April of 2016, and as of the time of removal, were generating more than $300,000 per month. The apps that were impacted have been downloaded more than 36 million times.
The apps would load up pages in the background, and click the advertisements to generate the revenue for the company that made them. The company is based in South Korea and called Enistudio.
There is no word on what, if any, changes Google will make to their app store to help prevent this type of thing from happening in the future.
