Digital Wallet and payment platform MobiKwik was removed from the Google Play Store as the app allegedly violated the ads policy. As per reports, MobiKwik CEO Bipin Preet Singh had said that the app was taken down from the store because if its ties to Indian contact tracing app Aarogya Setu.
The report said that MobiKwik had been promoting the use of the Aarogya Setu application. For this very reason, it even received a warning from Google. However, the warning was later reported to be a mistake. Regardless, a week later, the app was pulled down from the Google Play Store.
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“They gave us a warning one week ago and we explained that we have been asked to do this. Then today they first removed it around 3 pm IST and then we pursued their team and resubmitted the app after removing the link to Aarogya Setu and now they made it live,” said Singh as per a report by Gadgets360.
Singh also took to Twitter and pointed out that it was in the RBI’s instructions that the app had decided to promote the COVID 19 contact tracing app. “We were asked to do this by regulators ( @RBI ) and understand it’s in public health interest. You have too much power!” added Singh.
Although MobiKwik is now back on the shelves of the Google Play Store, the app no longer has the ads that promote Aarogya Setu. The Indian contact tracing app has over 11.6 crore users as per in-app statistics. The Aarogya Setu app also recently went open-source.
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The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology announced that it has released the source code of the Aarogya Setu app. This was done to promote transparency and open soords to collaboration with software developers. The move came after demands from cyber law experts and critics accused the app of being too ‘closed’ in nature and without adequate data protection measures.