240+ Android Apps Caught Showing Out-of-Context Ads

Google has removed this summer more than 240 Android apps from the official Play Store for showing out-of-context ads and breaking a newly introduced Google policy against this type of intrusive advertising. From a report: Out-of-context ads (also known as out-of-app ads) are mobile ads that are shown outside an app's normal container. They can appear as popups or as fullscreen ads. Out-of-context ads are banned on the Play Store since February this year, when Google banned more than 600 apps that were abusing this practice to spam their users with annoying ads. But despite the public crackdown and ban, other apps showing out-of-context ads have continued to be discovered -- such as in June this year. The latest of these discoveries come from ad fraud detection firm White Ops. In a blog post today, the company said it discovered a new cluster of more than 240+ Android apps bombarding their users with out-of-context ads -- but made to look like they originated from other, more legitimate applications.

Follow the money...

[Ritz_Just_Ritz]

Why not find a way to "punish" entities who purchase ads on these rogue platforms? Can we remove the incentive for these jackals to annoy us?

Re:

[jellomizer]

That will take effort and money.
It is easier to just delete them, and record why they did. A good number won't complain as they were just an overnight scam, Some would ask why and either change to be compliant or figure it isn't worth it. Then there will be a small few who will decide to fight it.

If Google were to punish everyone they are going to to have to fight all of them. Where they may had been willing to fix the problem, are now on the defensive.

Often doing the right thing, isn't doing the thing t

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

Google's own apps have out-of-context ads but haven't been removed. Maybe they turned them off, I already disabled all those notifications so wouldn't have noticed.

Re:

[Canberra1]

Better to return false information to the ad-pushers, all those advertisers paying for nothing, or sending glossy brochures to dead people. Copperhead is one paid for OS that allows such control. PiHole is another solution.

Hey Google

[GrahamJ]

There are no good ads.

Why is this even possible?

[Pravetz-82]

Why is this even a technological possibility in the first place ? Are they exposing basic drawing primitives of the OS to all apps all the time? I am not an expert on mobile development, but I expected a mobile OS to be more limited about stuff like this.

Re:

[toddestan]

A lot of them abuse functionality put in place for accessibility uses. Something like a screen reader would have a legitimate reason to draw on top of the screen, so they take the API meant for that and use it to display ads instead.

Though I also get the impression that the mobile OS's weren't exactly designed with things like security and permissions in mind, which is why it's been baked in after the fact.