Google Play Store Removes AnTuTu Apps for Alleged Cheetah Mobile Links

Mar. 9, 2020

As part of its continuedactions against Cheetah Mobilefor severe violations of its Play Store policies, Google last week removed all AnTuTu apps from its online app store, alleging the makers of the popular benchmarking app to be a ‘related account’ of the infamous Chinese developer. As of Monday, no AnTuTu apps could be spotted on the Google Play Store, with AnTuTu 3D Bench, AnTuTu Benchmark and the new AI evaluation software, AITUTU, all removed from the platform in one fell swoop over the weekend.

AnTuTu, however, has denied being a related account of Cheetah Mobile, although an investigation fromAndroid Policefound that ‘Privacy Disclosure’ links within some of the AnTuTu apps takes users to Cheetah Mobile website. The investigation further revealed that one Fu Sheng is at the helm of both companies.

The company went on to claim that it believes the entire thing has been a misunderstanding that will be cleared up as more facts come to light.“We believe that the reason for Google’s misjudgment is that we purchased and used the legal services from Cheetah Mobile, so our privacy policy link used the address of cmcm.com. This is what we are working on, including changing legal supplier. We hope that Google can examine Antutu’s account carefully and  finally resolve this misunderstanding as soon as possible”.

In case you didn’t know it already, Google last month removed all Cheetah Mobile apps from the Play Store for alleged ad fraud as part of a massive purge that saw the tech giantbanning around 600 ‘disruptive’ appsfrom its Android app store. The latest crackdown is part of Google’songoing efforts to clean up the Android eco-systemand prevent publishers from bombarding users with obnoxious ads.

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