14 DAY TRIAL // Google has just announced that it removed a total of 600 apps from the Google Play Store and then banned from the using the Google AdMob and Google Ad Manager ad monetization platforms after discovering they used a prohibited behavior to bombard users with ads.
This is a violation of the Google disruptive ads policy, the company explains in an announcement, explaining that mobile ad fraud is an issue that the company tackles very seriously.
“At Google, we have dedicated teams focused on detecting and stopping malicious developers that attempt to defraud the mobile ecosystem. As part of these efforts we take action against those who create seemingly innocuous apps, but which actually violate our ads policies,” Per Bjorke, Senior Product Manager, Ad Traffic Quality, says.
Double-check before downloading an Android app
While Google did not disclose the name of the apps that it pulled from the Google Play Store, the company warns that the number of developers embracing disruptive ads using an out-of-context approach is growing.
“We define disruptive ads as ads that are displayed to users in unexpected ways, including impairing or interfering with the usability of device functions. While they can occur in-app, one form of disruptive ads we’ve seen on the rise is something we call out-of-context ads, which is when malicious developers serve ads on a mobile device when the user is not actually active in their app,” Bjorke noted.
Malicious apps that are published in the Google Play store are nothing new, and security researchers always recommend users to check twice before downloading an app.
One way to make sure that an application is safe to install is checking the reviews section where other users typically share any malicious purpose they might discover after installing the app on their own devices.