(Yicai Global) Dec. 10 -- A Chinese government ministry ordered the removal of certain versions of movie and book review platform Douban, second-hand electronic goods sales platform Aihuishou and 104 other Chinese apps from app stores with immediate effect as the developers had not heeded previous warnings and were in breach of personal information and cybersecurity laws.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology had found a number of apps running on older versions of the Android operating system to be collecting an excessive amount of personal information, that the data gathered was unrelated to the services offered and that they were misleading users into downloading programs during an inspection on Nov. 3.

Developers were notified and given a certain time period to make the necessary corrections. When the deadline passed and the changes had not been made, the apps were taken down, the MIIT's Information Center said yesterday.

Douban, which had 230 million registered users as of June, retrieves users' personal information at unreasonable frequency on devices that use Android 9 or below, Sina Tech reported yesterday, citing the Beijing-based developer. Android 9 was running on 10.85 percent of devices in China as of November, while Android 8.1 and Android 7.1 are installed on 15.12 percent and 7.1 percent of devices, respectively, according to Statcounter data.

"We will take firm corrective action, thoroughly test each Android version and submit the corrected versions to authorities for review to ensure that this problem does not recur," Douban said.

Aihuishou v5.8.3 for Android requests users' location in order to guide them to the nearest Aihuishou shop. This is regarded as an ‘excessive’ permission by the MIIT, the Beijing News reported yesterday, citing the developer ATRenew.

Shanghai-based ATRenew will cooperate with authorities to make the necessary corrections and will strictly adhere to user privacy laws, the report said.

ATRenew’s share price [NYSE:RERE] closed up 2.5 percent at USD6.56 yesterday. The stock has plunged 66 percent from the high recorded after its initial public offering in June.

Editor: Kim Taylor