87 fraudulent apps for cryptocurrency operations found on Google Play

Bloomberg informs: A federal court in New York will consider a lawsuit filed by Alphabet Inc. the parent company of Google against two Chinese citizens who distributed and advertised fraudulent applications.

According to the case file, since 2019, the criminals have purchased and uploaded 87 apps to Google Play that allegedly allow them to make money on investments in cryptocurrencies. In fact, they stole all the funds sent through them. The apps were advertised, among other things, on YouTube and via messengers with the involvement of various influencers.

In total, users downloaded the fraudulent mobile apps more than 100,000 times. The amount of damage is unknown.

Google accuses the defendants of conspiring to extort money through electronic fraud.

Earlier, Google entered into a settlement agreement, agreeing to delete or anonymize billions of records of web browsing data collected when users were in «incognito mode». The company also agreed to a number of other changes that affect user privacy. For example, Google will allow incognito mode to block third-party cookies by default for five years so that the browser cannot track users on external sites while they are in private mode.

It is not yet known whether these changes will affect only US users or whether general changes will be made to the programs worldwide.