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  "documentTitle": "AppLovin (APP)",
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  "authorName": "Muddy Waters Research",
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  "sourceTypeLabel": "Short seller",
  "presentationDate": "2025-03-27 00:00:00",
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      "text": "Google and Facebook severed ties crippling Cheetah’s ad-driven revenue model. Shares plummeted in stages from a high of $76 in Jan 2018 to $9 at YE 2020.",
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      "text": "Below: Cheetah's share price collapse, -87% from peak in Jan '18 to YE '20.",
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      "text": "Cheetah Mobile was engaged in a \"click injection\" scheme to fraudulently claim referral bonuses from ad networks like Google and Facebook. A November 2018 BuzzFeed investigation reported the scheme citing findings from the analytics firm Kochava. This investigation was spurred by a short seller investigation.",
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      "text": "Misleading Disclosures: Like, APP, the company made technically truthful but deceptive statements about revenue sources and app functionality, omitting risks posed by the click fraud scheme.",
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      "text": "Impact: Google and Facebook severed ties crippling Cheetah's ad-driven revenue model. Shares plummeted in stages from a high of $76 in Jan 2018 to $9 at YE 2020. Cheetah never recovered. CMCM currently trades at ~$5.",
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      "text": "The \"Click Injection\" scheme: Seven Cheetah apps injected fake clicks to falsely attribute organic downloads and collect unearned \"install bounties.\" Cheetah denied responsibility blaming third-party SDKs, but evidence showed the fraud was tied to its proprietary code. A cybersecurity research found four Cheetah apps had been \"collecting all manner of private user data, including users' browsing history, search engine queries, and Wi-Fi access point names.\" Google and Meta were apparently unaware for years.",
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      "text": "collecting all manner of private user data, including users’ browsing history, search engine queries, and Wi-Fi access point names. — Cybersecurity research",
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      "text": "Source: CapIQ",
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      "text": "Cheetah Mobile's Click Injection Fraud Leads to Ban from Google & Meta – Share Price Collapses in Stages",
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