Google has removed nearly 600 Android apps and banned developers from Google Play Store and its advertising networks as part of a crackdown on fraudulent "malicious" ads and mobile ads.
Cheetah Mobile is one of the largest developers of banned software from the Play Store and Google’s advertising networks, a Chinese advertising company, and its technology-rich website, Pzfid, was involved in advertising fraud in November 2018.
And last December, Google removed one of the offending apps, but it allowed Chita to continue providing other apps in the Play Store.
As of Sunday morning, the full Chita app suite of approximately 45 apps in the Play Store has been removed, and apps no longer display ad inventory for sale on Google's advertising networks.
Google published a new technology late last year to automatically detect if the apps are displaying ads when not in use. This change helped identify abusive apps and developers, which led to recent actions by Google.
A Google official said that although some abusive apps and developers used similar technologies to display annoying ads and avoid detection, it was not clear whether they were working together, adding that "there are certainly indications that they are using similar practices. Whether they are coordinated or not." But we certainly did not know. "