AnTuTu's apps removed from Play Store over connection with Cheetah Mobile

Guilt by association.

What you need to know

• The popular suite of AnTuTu benchmarking apps has been removed from the Google Play Store.
• It was most likely due to its association with Cheetah Mobile after Google recently purged all of CM's apps for violating Play Store policies.
• In a statement, AnTuTu ensures that Cheetah Mobile is only an investor and has nothing to do with the operations at the company.

In February, Google made the announcement that it removed 600 apps from the Play Store for violating its ad policies or displaying disruptive ads. As part of this purge, all of Cheetah Mobile's apps were pulled, and for good reason. For years now, the Chinese app publisher has been one of the worst developers on the Play Store.

Apps from Cheetah Mobile have been found guilty of egregious data collection, displaying deceptive ads, and being an IAP minefield. It's a wonder it took Google this long to smack the developer and its associated apps with the ban hammer.

However, after a couple of weeks, it seems one of the most popular benchmarking apps on the Play Store has gotten caught up in the Cheetah Mobile sweep. As of today, you'll no longer be able to download AnTuTu 3DBench, AnTuTu Benchmark, or AITuTu from the Play Store. The reason for the removal stems from AnTuTu's privacy policy link using the domain cmcm.com, as well as the fact that CEO of Cheetah Mobile, Fu Sheng, is listed as the chairman/manager of Beijing AnTuTu Technology Co. Ltd.

According to a statement from AnTuTu given to Android Police, AnTuTu is not related to the Cheetah Mobile. The company invested in AnTuTu back in 2014, and as part of regulations, it was required to list the Cheetah Mobile CEO as the chairman/manager. AnTuTu is currently trying to resolve the issue with Google, including working on changing its legal supplier, privacy policy link, and asking Cheetah Mobile to resolve the chairman issue. The full statement provided to Android Police can be found below.

We received a notification email from Google on March 7th informing us that AnTuTu was one of the related publisher accounts of Cheetah Mobile, all AnTuTu apps were removed from the Play Store. But in fact, We think there is some misunderstanding about it. Antutu is NOT the related account of Cheetah Mobile!!

AnTuTu was founded in 2011, even before Cheetah Mobile, and is one of the earliest Google Play developers. Cheetah Mobile invested in us in around 2014 and became one of our shareholders since then. However, we still retain a considerable account of shares and Independent operation of the company as well as our own independent Google Play account. Cheetah Mobile has never touched our Google Play account, and AnTuTu has NOT done any promotion of Cheetah Mobile's software.

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.

Regarding Fu Sheng being the chairman / manager of Beijing AnTuTu Technology Co., Ltd., this is because of the requirements of the investors. In fact, many Chinese companies have such requirements when investing. When the shares reach a certain percentage, investors will require changes in government registration documents. The company is actually operated by Beijing AnTuTu Technology Co., Ltd. Henan Branch. (https://ift.tt/2vQollS), and Fu Sheng does not actually participate in the operation or the management of AnTuTu. Anyway, we have informed the investor Cheetah Mobile asking them to solve these problems caused by them.

We hope that Google can examine AnTuTu's account carefully and finally resolve this misunderstanding as soon as possible.

If you've followed reviews of smartphones and tablets over the years, you've undoubtedly heard of AnTuTu. The benchmarking app has been a staple for many reviewers and users who want a metric to compare the performance of their device to others. It has even been used by brands for bragging rights, as they compete to take the top spot on the charts. Whether or not it's a useful metric has been debated by many, but if you really must have AnTuTu on your device, it can still be downloaded from its site and installed.

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