Appodeal fraud revealed. My investigation

[mahdispecial]

@johnedepth

> They’re selling directly part of their traffic and keeping this revenue as their business model.

So you believe that Appodeal managed to make direct deals with google? lmao. or chartboost?
And google is willing to pay more for a click? lol. Why would google want to do this? Why pay more to appodeal rather than work with the developer calculating price by well known auction system?

> This ads can affect app stores rankings just like any other ad network affects with their ads. Knowing all that since they never hided it (read the threads), where’s the catch exactly?

That one is easy. By command they create simultaneous spike in activity on all affected devices.
Don’t forget that the traffic is stolen from the developers.

Why should developers care about all these details if they get better better revenue and immediate payment???!!

[pavel-golubev]

@appslabmarket

All the google developer accounts ive used as bought from a source, I never once have used a developer account using a personal CC, the data john paul sent me was clearly data from airpush’s payment page, You can find my company name online easily, but my business registration #? No, you can’t find that anywhere other then airpush thats the only place I’ve ever placed it in the 10+ years I’ve been doing online, I’m not trying to get anyone in trouble or harp on you, but John paul knows exactly what he did,

I’m not saying you or appodeal is bad, but he never got my email from anywhere online, otherwise he’d be sending to the vietnam e-mail on the dev accounts, not my personal g-mail that i use to login to airpush with and no other network.

Every network under the sun sends out emails, I get it…it’s fine, but it’s kind of crazy when some guy sends you a e-mail starting “Hi xxxxxxxxxx” and it’s your business ID # you give to the government for tax purposes, if he hit me up “Hey xxxx media” …fine, people do that all the time.

I’m not trying to flame or anything you Pavel…i think what you’re doing is great, and i get every network will have its struggles and hiccups along the way, atleast you’re willing to address them

Hey. I take it very seriously. Could you PM me your e-mail address, the one that has been used to contact you?
We will double check internally and I will post the results.

I’m pretty sure we haven’t been using third-party private databases.

[DroidPro]

I hope appodeal remains high paying and flexible for us developers like the way it is now. I was confused whether to go with appodeal or not. For now I am going to go with appodeal.

[treble12]

Assuming what @johnedepth said was true, but if Appodeal does not cause Google ban my apps, I will still keep using appodeal since it really generates good income for me comparing it with admob and other networks.

And, why do you spend so much time on investigating Appodeal? Have you done the same thing on other ad networks?

[johnedepth]

Definitely, you won’t do anything untoward knowingly.
Just trust your gut. And have some stats
Why investigate appodeal fraud?
I’ve lost some time and bucks.
More credible articles will follow.

[gcc]

I must suggest for all who are investigating appodeal, get some life and spend some time to improve or create new games and apps.
just see how shitty they are and have spoiled the entire market with loose motion.

still if you are getting time, use wireshark/ethreal/toddler/tcpdump/f*ckdump and intercept other ad networks as well.
do not be partial for them. afterall they are giving less revenue than appdeal.

still anything is left out?? mine co*k is standing straight in air. come and suck it. may be it will rest your soul in peace.

hope it helps.

[pavel-golubev]

@pavel.golubev

Hey. I take it very seriously. Could you PM me your e-mail address, the one that has been used to contact you?
We will double check internally and I will post the results.

I’m pretty sure we haven’t been using third-party private databases.

I received a DM from you with your e-mail address.
We are checking internally. I will post results by the end of this week.

[TheFunApp]

@gcc

I must suggest for all who are investigating appodeal, get some life and spend some time to improve or create new games and apps.
just see how shitty they are and have spoiled the entire market with loose motion.

still if you are getting time, use wireshark/ethreal/toddler/tcpdump/f*ckdump and intercept other ad networks as well.
do not be partial for them. afterall they are giving less revenue than appdeal.

still anything is left out?? mine co*k is standing straight in air. come and suck it. may be it will rest your soul in peace.

hope it helps.

Hi,

I’m currently using startapp ad units for my android games.
Same as you guys, startapp is generating very low income for me recently.
I’m considering switching over to appodeal after reading the great results that you all received.
May I know if it is safe to use appodeal at app launch and app exit?
Will I get ban by google play?

Thank you.

[pavel-golubev]

@TheFunApp

Hi,

I’m currently using startapp ad units for my android games.
Same as you guys, startapp is generating very low income for me recently.
I’m considering switching over to appodeal after reading the great results that you all received.
May I know if it is safe to use appodeal at app launch and app exit?
Will I get ban by google play?

Thank you.

Appodeal does not support app launch ads or app exit ads.
You can try to integrate it, but performance will be low.

[DroidGenie]

@johnedepth

Beware mobile devs!

Heres my report of digging inside the Appodeal’s internals.
appodeal.com states to be an ad revenue optimization tool.
I used tcpdump/tcpflow/wireshark combined with some mitm assistance (see fiddler) and app behaviour observation to prove the fraud.
(literally by filming actual app’s screen and counting banners on the device and comparing my real numbers to the backend statistics)
I uncovered that this so called “revenue optimizer” network is a total fraud and scam!

Please take no offense. Its just some info I have to share with you. Everything is up to you. Make your own decisions!
Please verify everything by yourself. I’m not going to participate in any debates.

So the Appodeal scam is HUGE. And it is ongoing. Right now.

• They use some botnet like methods to manipulate App Store and Google Play rankings
• They shave off their partners
  I uncovered botnet-like network activity originating from the Appodeal SDK
  This behavior is concealed by default and activated only by their command server under certain conditions.

How does it work?
Appodeal promises us to get more money / fillrate / eCPM. However its just the smokescreen for the original criminal scheme!
By integrating the SDK, developers voluntarily (yet unwillingly!) participate in their distributed botnet-like ranking manipulation system!
As all of their app’s users do.

Ok cool but really how it works??
Appodeal partners sign up and install Appodeal SDK into their apps.
Appodeal binary code gets executed each time the user launches an app on his device.
The code runs with game and starts to exploit traffic from all participating devices of this distributed network.
Of course devs are not aware of this activity.
They expect SDK to make a good job of honest banner mediation.
However, I studied the traffic from some devices comparing to the factual banners appearance on the real device’s screen. As well as with the appodeal’s backend stats. And got some hard facts. They shave up to 30% of traffic!

So what does the so called “botnet” do?

By the packet from Appodeal server, SDK switches away from “fair mode” of ad mediation. To rotation of Appodeal’s private interstitial.
This create very intense and very focused promotion of specific products affiliated with Appodeal.
They just select the target and voila all the devices start to promote apps and manipulate the Appstore and Google Play, all at once!

Please note, that this activity originates from the vast distributed network of many many devices.
Of course it influences Google Play and Apple’s App Store rankings.
A developer wouldn’t even get a penny from it! The interstitials are not added to backend stats at all!

Conclusion: Appodeal just steal from the developers and use their userbase to promote their own affiliates.
By their concealed botlike network!

2. Appodeal uses their own accounts for all 3rd party Ad Networks.
   Ads are tracked by the system directly, putting the developer out of the loop.
   There is no way to to link my own accounts to the system! So I couldn’t even get the real stats!
   This opens vast area for for ripping off clients.
   Thanks Appodeal for being so kind to the users helping them to create all accounts by yourself!

You can compare appodeal stats with actual banners impressions.
Just count your actual impressions within the app.
Compare it with the backend stats. And see the difference.

They just STEAL your money. Check it for yourself before they didn’t hide it for a moment.

Of course their system conceals this activity very well.
If you really want to catch them by your own, just playtest for a while to catch this behavior on a device!
It took me more than 20-25 hours to capture it.
Looks like the network is still in beta. And they promote only limited set of their own apps for test purposes. But this could change.
I had to record and review many hours of video from my device until caught them up!

So to summarize:

• Appodeal steal from their partners
• They use their system to promote own products and manipulate App Store and Google Play rankings.

I repeat please don’t trust my words and check it for yourself.
Do whatever you have to do. I’ll encourage you to follow my way and explore it by yourself.
Just trust your gut!

Dude your full of it, it take sup to 48 hours for the appodeal impressions for appodeal appwalls to show up in developer console.

[pavel-golubev]

@appslabmarket

No offense to appodeal but John Paul needs to be put in his place, the fact he took airpush’s publisher list is messed up and probably boarderline illegal to be honest, then the guy says he found my “corporation ID” Not my corporation NAME, but my corporations business # online…Yeah…Ok…I looked for 10+ hours, you don’t find it online, you find it in airpush’s payment details page.

Then he goes on and says “Hey send me your apps, I’ll reskin, throw in appodeal and give you 60%” – No thanks…

I wish Appodeal nothing but the best, but theres some serious questionable tactics going on thats for sure. You guys signed up 2,000 developers because you took airpush’s publisher list,

You want proof? I have Phil and Bill who know john paul because he worked for airpush based on comission and how many developers he gets signed up.

Not that hard to pay a guy comission to mass spam developers. So please, save the whole “We signed up 2000 developers in 6 months” because I could do the same thing if I waved 100grand infront of a salesmens face.

How do you track the data of each seperate developer when some networks have no postback or API? If you’re running it all through “Appodeals” publisher account then thats sketchy…I’d hope every developer create their own account and they put in their own key’s etc …if not then it’s no different then ads2apk really

As I promised, we ran internal investigation to check your report.

We have spoken and John Paul has shared the information he has.

Your email was scraped from the list on Appnext.com. The page does not currently show your email address however the websites last available cache does reveal this to be the case. (https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:dCFLYTAu8JoJ:https://community.appnext.com/user/fingertise+&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

You ID number is listed in one of John Paul’s previous years reports as a prospect however not his customer. This report was not the Airpush database and only consisted of his prospects. He further explained that the ID number associated with your email address was most likely from research during that time and the only matching reference available was what he found with his limited access to the old database.

Additional data regarding your account was provided by Mixrank and merged in your account.

Our script does merge records in our customer relations management database using the email address. When you responded to his initial introduction during his time here at Appodeal, this record he brought with him had your ID in the ‘first_name’ field. With your reply, the record updated to the first name being “Avery Whs”

On behalf of the whole Appodeal team I apologize if it offended you in any way and would like to be specific that there was no malice intended or public postings made.