Chinese online shopping app Pinduoduo has been suspended by Google from the Play Store over concerns it contains malicious code.
Recently, Google suddenly announced to suspension of the Chinese shopping app Pinduoduo on Google Play for investigation after discovering a security risk in this application. Google said it blocked downloads of apps suspected of having malicious code (ransomware), and warned users to uninstall the version of Pinduoduo downloaded from unsecured sources.
Pinduoduo is one of China’s most popular e-commerce apps, owned by the PDD company with more than 700 million monthly users. The majority of Pinduoduo’s users are mainly in the Chinese market. The app is famous for its group-buying business model, which allows buyers to save money by having friends buy the same item in bulk.
According to Bloomberg, Shawn Chang – CEO of security company HardenedVault shared that Pinduoduo company exploited a zero-day vulnerability to illegally access users’ systems or data to steal. information.
The case of Pinduoduo being suspended on Google Play quickly attracted public attention in the context of US accusations of TikTok as a national security threat. The US government believes that apps originating in China violate user privacy.
According to Reuters, Pinduoduo said it had received notice of the temporary suspension of the application for not complying with Google’s policies. PDD Holdings denies that Pinduoduo contains malicious code and is in contact with Google for more information about the incident.
PDD Holdings launched the Pinduoduo shopping app in 2015 with the goal of targeting markets that JD and Alibaba overlooked such as poor rural areas and remote areas. After that, the company expanded the market by shifting to selling more expensive items and targeting users in big cities. In September 2022, PDD Holdings launched Temu online shopping application for the US market.
Reuters quoted analysts Catherine Lim and Trini Tan, who said that Google’s removal of Pinduoduo application from Google Play will also affect Temu – also an application of PDD Holdings. However, currently, users can still download Temu from Google Play.
The Pinduoduo incident has become a topic of discussion on both Western and Chinese social networks. At home, users can still download Pinduoduo in the Android app stores of Huawei, Xiaomi, and others
Currently, Apple has not taken any action on the security of the Pinduoduo application, iOS users can still download Pinduoduo from the App Store.