Google has banned nearly 600 Android apps from the Play Store for bombarding users with disruptive ads and violating its advertising guidelines.
The company categorises disruptive ads as “ads that are displayed to users in unexpected ways, including impairing or interfering with the usability of device functions,” such as a full-screen ad served when attempting to make a phone call.
Although Google didn’t name the specific apps in question, many of the apps — which had been installed more than 4.5 billion times — primarily targeted English-speaking users and were mainly from developers based in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and India, according to Buzzfeed News.
Highlighting that malicious developers are getting “more savvy in deploying and masking disruptive ads,” the company said it has developed new counter mechanisms to detect such behavior.
images from Hacker News
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