Google recently suspended Chinese e-commerce app Pinduoduo on the grounds of security concerns. Alongside, the technology giant has reportedly banned several apps developed by Pinduoduo. The ban was announced after malware issues were found on versions of the Chinese e-commerce app outside Google’s app store, a company spokesperson said.
“Off-Play versions of this app that have been found to contain malware have been enforced on via Google Play Protect,” Google spokesperson Ed Fernandez said in a statement. In case you are unaware, off-play apps are those that are not available on Google Play Store, but can be downloaded through APKs.
Google is also sending out notifications to the users who have downloaded these apps to remove them from their device immediately. The apps were reportedly tracking users’ data.
“Google Play has informed us this morning that Pinduoduo App has been temporarily suspended as the current version is not compliant with Google’s Policy, but has not shared more details,” a Pinduoduo spokesperson said in an email.
There are several other apps that have been suspended by Google Play, Pinduoduo added.
In another news, Google has started opening access to its generative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot called Bard as it seeks public feedback to “improve its systems” and take on OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Bard can be accessed by users in the US and UK starting today at bard.google.com. It will be released in other regions and in other languages over time, the big tech firm said.
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