China, the world’s largest smartphone market with over 1bn users, also has a rampant market of fake users — a big headache for app developers who pay for marketing but fail to get results beyond the initial bump in app store rankings. Digital Union, a Beijing-based cybersecurity startup, has been helping them detect such fraud since 2014.Fake users are part of the wider online fraud of click farming, a $50bn industry in China, according to investigations by the South China Morning Post in 2018. Click fraud works by artificially boosting the standing of an app or website by paying for increased...
Digital Union's co-founders Yang Cong'an (middle), Zhang Yuping (left) and Liu Jingjing (right) Source: Weibo
