Sensationalist clickbait at its finest
"We understand the applications were reviewed but not removed by Google because they didn't do anything harmful"
and yet you went ahead and published this sensationalist article anyway. The fact of the matter is that these apps contained duplicate PNGs. There's no harm in that, and yet you insinuate that because these apps exist, "effective screening for the vulnerability is not even taking place on Google's official Play store."
Biting the hand that feeds IT
