A popular Chinese developer is banned from the Google Play Store after Google discovered that the developer was committing ad fraud and abusing user permissions. DO Global, partially owned by Baidu produced fake ad clicks to gain revenue among other offences.

“We take our responsibility to protect users and advertisers seriously, and invest in tools and resources to fight fraud and abuse globally. We actively investigate malicious behavior, and when we find violations, we take action, including the removal of a developer’s ability to monetize their app with AdMob or publish on Play,” said Google.

The researchers found that at least six apps contained code for fake ad-clicking that would run in the background even when the app is closed. DO Global previously had about 100 apps in the Play Store, many of them listed under other developer names, such as “Pic Tools Group.”