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To elaborate further, as shared in our previous article, we received a notification about the presence of Vungle SDK in our apps. As soon as we received that notification, we took action by working with the third-party provider to remove this adware way back in July.
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From: VAL-U-PRO CONSULTING GROUP, LLC - SRIKANTH KIDAMBI <srik.kid2012@gmail.
Date: Thu, Jun 25, 2020, 5:39 PM
Subject: Re: Notification from Google Play about iDiot Video Chat App
To: ####
Play Store Team:
May I know more about the malicious behaviour of the Vungle SDK? Vungle appears to be in place since 2012 with significant seed money invested then for this SDK company. Is there a specific Vungle adware that is a concern or is it for any app that includes Vungle
that this concern has been raised? It is important for us to understand
so that we can be careful about the nature of third-party SDKs to
include in our app development process.
Here are the current numbers of Vungle that are in the Play Store:
===================================================================================Email to the third-party source offering the API/template
Team:
May I know whether any app update is available for the Vungle issue?
Also, were you able to recover FuntasticPhotos app?
Sincerely,
Srikanth.
We have sent an email to the Google Play store team to find out more in this regard. As your organization is also a concerned party in this regard, I am forwarding the email sent to the Google Play store team. (Please see email below)
Please keep me posted on when the update would become available.
We are also putting out a media article to share this issue with the users of our apps. We believe that it is our ethical responsibility to inform those users upfront. We will share the same with your team when that article gets published.
| Srik Kid2012 Jun 29, 2020, 5:31 PM GMT+7 |
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Once that was done, we uploaded the new apk or the app file to the play store on July 8th as version 2.2. Prior to this addition, we also verified the manifest file to see whether we could locate the Vungle SDK and it was not found. Presented below are evidences supporting the same. We came up with this quick way to identify and verify the presence and absence of different add-ons on apps.
For example, in the case of Vungle SDK on our iMessenger app, the left most image shows Vungle being found in the AndroidManifest file. This file corresponds to the version before the update and the one in the middle is the version post-update. In addition, we also utilized other tools out there to locate the Vungle SDK, and it was not found either. As a follow up to this issue, we are communicating back and forth with the Google Play Store team in this regard. To this point, the team keeps on suggesting to update the app, though not being clear on what evidential details that they have to support the presence of Vungle SDK.
Timeline:
1. June 24th: Received notification about the Vungle SDK issue from Google Play Store
2. June 25th: Communicated with the API/template provider
3. July first week: Third-party announced supposedly the Vungle SDK has been addressed
4. Right away, followed the instructions, but still noticed the adware, which we informed them.
5. When updated again later in the first week, I noticed that our app, iMessenger, was devoid of Vungle SDK.
6. End of the first week of July: the updated version was uploaded to the play store
Where are we now?
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Recent email of ours to the Play Store team
Good morning:
This
is a follow up to our last email with regard to suspension of our
iMessenger app for the reason that it includes Vungle SDK.
As
pointed out in several emails, we took action right after when we first
got notification in the summer of this year. In spite of all the
confusion that is going on right now, we took action immediately and
uploaded the updated file on July 8th. We also confirmed several times
that the Vungle SDK was not there in the manifest file that was uploaded
prior to releasing the latest version. We named that version 2.2 as per
recommendation. After that, we might have even followed up requesting
the team to confirm whether everything looks good or not, but never
received any response.
Now
after almost two months, suddenly on September 2nd, we got an email
saying that our app has been removed for the reason that the Vungle SDK
is still intact in the app. Again, we went through the exercise to
verify whether Vungle SDK is there or not, and we were unable to find it
on the version uploaded on July 8th of this year. We also utilized
different ad detectors out there, which also confirmed the same. We
presented screenshots for the same showing the absence of Vungle SDK in
the manifest file for the recently uploaded version, while there was
Vungle SDK in our previous version. Even after producing these
evidences, the removal team keep on asking us to upload the new
version.
What I am
wondering is how could we upload a file without exactly knowing what the
issue is? We have provided evidence of the absence of Vungle SDK in the
manifest file and would appreciate some kind of evidence, which shows
the presence of Vungle SDK from your end, which your team is claiming
for removing our app. Please also provide details on how your team found
it. Having this information would help us address the issue in hand.
From
our end, we are producing the same evidences again. We have shared
screenshots of the Android manifest files for the two versions uploaded
to Google Play Console. The one that was uploaded prior to the July 8th
version shows Vungle when searched for it. Whereas, the one uploaded on
July 8th, 2020 shows not found result, while searching for the same
search word. Considering so many projects that is going on for us
concurrently, while having a lean team, we have found this quick, but
effective way to determine presence and absence of an ad activity.
In
addition, we are also showing results from one of the ad detectors
output, which confirms the absence of Vungle SDK for the July 8th
version.
I look forward
to getting a clear explanation for removing our iMessenger app, which
will give us confidence that there was a clear methodology in place to
determine presence and absence of Vungle SDK that led to this decision.
By
the way, while we are going through such scrutiny, may I know how come
there is another iMessenger app that was not updated since 2019 still
listed in the play store? This appears to be very similar to ours,
though it was added after almost two years or so. Also, while searching
iMessenger in the play store, that is the first app which shows up.
However, ours need to be found only by adding Val-U-Pro in combination
with iMessenger for it to be found. This was consistently happening for
sometime and even a potential purchaser brought up this issue, which we
shared earlier in the year with the removals team. The same removals
team removed our app couple of years ago, when a third-party claimed our
app name conflicting with theirs, though they had no app with a
confusingly similar mark as ours in the Google Play Store.
We
also submitted a removals request form earlier in the summer requesting
to take action to remove the other iMessenger app for this reason.
Though our mark has a pending USPTO trademark application, the removals
team negated our request to remove the mark. It makes us wonder whether
this current suspension has any connection to that request of ours.
I look forward to a clear explanation in this regard.
Sincerely,
Srikanth.
|  Sat, Sep 5, 7:30 PM (22 hours ago) | ||
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What else on this front are we working on?
We have been researching on various ad based tools network as an ongoing project for some time now. We have successfully figured out ways to clean up the entire network on android apps, especially for ours. We are in the process of wrapping up this work and then, we should be able to offer the cleaned versions as well for the end-consumers to pick and choose.
In addition, we will also be launching various apps that we have built over time without reliance on third-party platforms, majority of which was done by our founder, Dr Srikanth Srinivasan Kidambi, on our AmazeBaba platform.
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