Those who followed smartphone and tablet reviews over the years, should have heard of AnTuTu, the benchmarking app used by the many reviewers.
The app is popular for those who want to compare the performance of their device to others. It's popularity is so significant that It has even been used by brands for bragging rights, whenever those brands' devices receive high metrics as they compete to the top spot on the charts.
AnTuTu's name has become one of the few benchmarking app to receive such popularity.
While there are reasons for the results to be debatable, AnTuTu is ditched from the Play Store.
During the weekend, all apps of the company, including AnTuTu 3DBench, AnTuTu Benchmark, and AnTutu Benchmark (for AI features) have all disappeared from the Play Store.
While Google isn't explaining anything about the removal, many speculated that it is part of Google's broader banning of apps that are connected to Cheetah Mobile.
Back in February, Google removed about 600 apps from its Play Store because they violated its policies.
And during the process, Cheetah Mobile was also purged, as all of its apps are said to have also violated its policies. And unfortunately for AnTuTu, it was also caught in this process.
According to AnTuTu's CEO Zhao Chen, AnTuTu is older than Cheetah Mobile and Cheetah Mobile is only a shareholder since 2014. As an investor, regulations required Cheetah Mobile's CEO to be listed as AnTuTu's chairman/manager.
But still, Cheetah Mobile is not related to AnTuTu, and has nothing to do with the operations at AnTuTu.
The Cheetah Mobile company "has never touched" the Google Play account of AnTuTu and the benchmark, and "has NOT done any promotion" of the developer’s software. Chen also said that his company believes this is all a misjudgment because the AnTuTu's Privacy Policy link is using a Cheetah Mobile address at cmcm.com.
For these reasons, AnTuTu is trying to resolve the issue with Google, including working on changing its legal supplier, its Privacy Policy link, and asking Cheetah Mobile to also take its part by resolving the chairman issue.
The full statement provided to Android Police can be found below.
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.