Antutu may have been mistakenly removed from Google Play Store

The popular benchmarking app, Antutu, has been removed from the Google Play Store as part of a crackdown on apps developed by Cheetah Mobile. It was reported that almost 600 apps were removed for showing disruptive ads. This includes showing full-screen ads when a user tries to make a call or when unlocking a phone.

Now it appears that Google might have made a mistake when they delisted Antutu from its Play Store platform. In a statement released to Android Police, Antutu CEO Zhao Chen clarifies that they are not related to Cheetah Mobile. It added that Antutu was founded in 2011 but Cheetah Mobile had invested in them in 2014.

Although Cheetah Mobile is a shareholder, they maintained that Antutu is independent and they have never given Google Play access to Cheetah Mobile or promoted any of Cheetah Mobile’s software. The benchmarking app provider believed that Google may have wrongly associated them to Cheetah Mobile as their privacy policy link was pointing to Cheetah Mobile’s website. Antutu has also urged Google to examine their account carefully and to resolve the misunderstanding as soon as possible. Below is their statement in full:

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://www.tianyancha.com/company/3222572910), 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.

Antutu is still available on Apple’s AppStore. If you need to download Antutu your Android device, you can download the APK from their official site here. Both Antutu and the Antutu 3D Benchmark files are available.

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