After Pinduoduo was removed from Google, how much impact will it have on Temu?

Unknown, as there is no clear relationship between Pinduoduo and Temu

Business Dialogue has learned that in March of this year, Pinduoduo was removed from Google Play due to “malware”. On May 17th, CNBC reported that although the United States has accused Temu of having data risks, analysts believe that Temu’s data risks are much smaller compared to Pinduoduo.

It is reported that the malware in Pinduoduo exploits vulnerabilities unique to Android phones. This vulnerability allows the application to bypass user security permissions, access private messages, modify settings, view data from other applications, and prevent uninstallation.

As a result, Google identified Pinduoduo as a “recognized malicious application” and called on users to uninstall Pinduoduo, but Pinduoduo officials denied these claims.

Recently, according to the analysis of Kevin Reed, the Director of Information Security at Acronis, Pinduoduo requested up to 83 permissions, including access to biometric information, Bluetooth, and information about Wi-Fi networks. In contrast, Temu only requires 24 permissions, including access to Bluetooth and information about Wi-Fi networks.

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Sean Duca, Vice President and Security Director for Asia Pacific and Japan at Palo Alto Networks, pointed out that as a shopping application, Pinduoduo’s required permissions are too high.

For example, for consumers, biometric data is a very private and unchangeable information that is usually not disclosed to shopping websites or applications. It is also rare for shopping websites or applications to access Wi-Fi information. If a user connects to a company’s Wi-Fi network, once cyber criminals obtain this information, it could lead to significant risks.

Obviously, in terms of collecting user information, Pinduoduo is much more active than Temu, and the risks are also greater.

According to Lindsay Gorman, a senior researcher in emerging technologies at the German Marshall Fund, there have been no reports of malicious software functionality in Google Play, APP Store, or third-party versions of Temu.

Furthermore, the key used to sign the malicious software for Pinduoduo is different from the key used to sign the Temu application. The Pinduoduo malware appears to primarily target Chinese users, specifically on the most common mobile devices in China, such as Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo, and Samsung.

Gorman stated that even compared to social media platforms like TikTok and Lemon8, Temu faces less data risk. This is because in addition to creating user profiles using all of this data, social media platforms can also select, promote, and demote content based on metrics, which may promote content related to political topics and pose a greater threat to national security.

However, in a report released in April on China’s “fast fashion” platforms, the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission accused Temu and Shein of posing potential data risks.

The report stated that Shein and Temu mainly rely on American consumers downloading and using their applications to drive growth, and they will drive more Chinese companies to replicate their model, which will pose risks and challenges to US market access laws and principles.

Despite frequent accusations by US politicians that Chinese companies provide data to the Chinese government, there is currently no clear evidence to support this claim.

BusinessDialogue learned that Temu’s popularity in the United States is currently on the rise. As of early May, the total views of Temu’s Super Bowl ad video on YouTube had reached 128 million. In contrast, the Super Bowl ad ranked first on USATodayAdMeter has less than 2 million views on YouTube.

Recently, Temu also won the Google Play Editor’s Choice Award, which is awarded to carefully selected applications and games by the Google Play editorial team. These applications and games have outstanding quality, innovation, and design, which will further expand Temu’s influence.

Editor ✎ Ashley/AMZ123

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