Almedia, the Berlin-based rewarded user acquisition company behind the Freecash platform, confirmed this week that both its iOS and Android apps were removed from the Apple App Store and Google Play. The removals followed media coverage that Moritz Holländer, the company's founder and chief executive, described on April 16, 2026, as containing "a number of inaccurate and misleading claims" about the business. Holländer published a detailed statement on the Almedia website and a summary on LinkedIn, confirming that the company is "actively working with both Apple and Google to resolve this" and is "confident in a positive outcome."

The development represents a significant escalation from the Apple-only removal that PPC Land reported on April 14, 2026. At that point, only the iOS app had been taken down. Within days, the Android app followed. The dual removal affects a platform that, according to Almedia's own figures, has accumulated more than 70 million registered users worldwide and paid out over $300 million in rewards since its founding.

What Freecash is

Freecash is Almedia's flagship consumer product. Users earn real money by completing tasks inside third-party apps - primarily mobile games, but also shopping offers and market research surveys. The commercial arrangement sits between the user and the advertiser: mobile game publishers and retailers pay Almedia when users complete meaningful in-app actions, such as reaching a level or making a purchase, and Almedia shares that revenue with the users themselves. According to Holländer's statement, the model "turns advertisement into engagement, by rewarding users for engaging post acquisition."

The company describes this category as rewarded user acquisition - distinct from traditional paid install campaigns because the advertiser pays for post-install behavior rather than the install event itself. Almedia is a technology and data-driven company with over 150 employees operating across five offices. Its iOS app held a 4.7-star rating from over 150,000 App Store reviews before the removal, while the Android app had accumulated more than 350,000 Google Play reviews at a 4.5-star average. In 2026 alone, according to Holländer's statement, 19 million new users joined Freecash, and the iOS app reached the No. 2 position in the US App Store overall chart.

What triggered the removals

Neither Apple nor Google has made a public statement explaining the decision. Holländer's account frames the removals as a direct consequence of media coverage rather than a policy enforcement action initiated by either platform. "Our iOS and Android apps were removed this week from the App Store and Google Play following media coverage that contained a number of inaccurate and misleading claims about our business," the statement reads.

The April 16 statement does not name specific publications or articles. It does, however, engage with a number of claims it treats as circulating publicly. On data practices, Almedia states it is "not a data broker" and does not and will never sell data. The company points out that it is based in Germany and describes itself as "fully compliant with GDPR, the strictest privacy regulations that exist on a governmental level." Following earlier reports in 2026 about the collection of sensitive data, Almedia updated its privacy policy to remove broad legal language it said "could be misinterpreted," while maintaining that it had not and does not collect sensitive user data.

On the question of misleading advertising, Holländer acknowledges that some third-party affiliates within Freecash's affiliate marketing program created TikTok ads "with exaggerated or misleading claims" earlier in 2026. "We apologize to our users for the confusion and disappointment this may have caused," the statement says. When the specific ads were identified, the company says it had them removed and "fully supported the platforms' decisions to take them down." Going forward, Almedia has established Partner Advertising Guidelines at freecash.com/en/policies/partner-advertiser-policy, with a list of approved messaging and strictly prohibited claims, and says it is actively monitoring affiliate output.

The affiliate and offerwall question

Several commenters on Holländer's LinkedIn post raised a question about the fundamental mechanics of the model. One comment, attributed to Florian Geldner, identified as a Senior Product Manager, noted that the claim "Freecash does not incentivize installs, but instead specific actions within other apps" only applies cleanly if the target app is already installed on the user's device. "For the cases where the app is not on the user's phone, an install is a direct consequence," Geldner wrote.

This distinction matters because Apple's App Store guidelines - specifically section 3.2.2.(x), as quoted in Almedia's own statement - permit apps to "incentivize users to take specific actions within apps (e.g. completing a level, watching an ad)" but prohibit forcing users to "download other apps" to access functionality. Almedia's position is that its model complies because it rewards post-install actions rather than the install itself. The company quotes this exact guideline text in its defense.

Another commenter, not named as affiliated with Almedia, framed the category as sitting "somewhere in between rewarded video" and "offerwalls, which Apple banned in 2011, but Google has not." That comment also noted that questions from Apple may persist even after media allegations are addressed. These industry observations reflect ongoing ambiguity about how platform policies map onto business models that have evolved faster than the rulebooks governing them.

The $300 million advertising budget

One of the more significant disclosures in Holländer's statement is the scale of Almedia's advertising spend. According to the statement, Freecash reached the top of the App Store through "substantial, sustained investment in paid user acquisition" with an annual advertising budget of "$300+ million across all major channels, including Google, Meta, DSPs, television, influencer partnerships." This figure is described as ultimately funded by advertiser spend - mobile gaming studios and retailers paying Almedia for user engagement.

The statement is direct about what this scale implies: "At the scale we operate, sustained investment of this size only happens when performance is genuine." Almedia also confirms that its model "prohibits paid reviews" and that it does not use bots to drive traffic, downloads, or engagement, arguing that doing so would "directly go against our performance-based model, which is entirely built on real user activity."

This context makes the competitive structure of the situation notable. Apple and Google are simultaneously infrastructure partners whose stores Almedia depends on for distribution, operators of competing advertising products (Apple Ads and Google UAC) that compete for the same mobile game publisher budgets, and the bodies deciding whether Almedia can operate. Apple's advertising business reached all-time revenue highs in Q2 2026, with Services revenue of $31 billion and the company confirming Apple Maps will carry ads later this year. Whether competitive dynamics played any role in the removal decisions is not established by any available evidence. Holländer's statement does not raise this directly. However, the structural conflict of interest is real and has been noted by industry observers. One commenter on the LinkedIn post wrote: "Getting removed from both stores at once based on media coverage - not a court ruling, not a policy violation, just coverage - is a reminder that 'platform partner' is a very generous term for what is ultimately a one-sided relationship."

App Store history and the 2024-2025 guideline evolution

This is not the first time Almedia has faced removal from the App Store. According to the company's statement, its original iOS app was removed in 2024. In mid-2025, Apple updated its guidelines to add section 3.2.2.(x), explicitly permitting the rewarded model. Following that update, Almedia acquired an existing rewards app, transitioned its user base, and rebuilt the product "from the ground up with an entirely new experience, reward system, and proprietary technology."

The 2025 guideline change was interpreted across the industry as a stable signal. Almedia invested heavily on that basis - spending more than $100 million on user acquisition in 2026 alone, according to the April 14 LinkedIn post by Holländer. That figure appears in both the earlier statement and is consistent with the $300 million annual advertising budget figure quoted in the April 16 document. The mismatch between the $100M user acquisition figure (DSPs, TV, social) and the $300M total budget figure likely reflects that the larger number covers all marketing channels including the cost of rewarding users, influencer partnerships, and other promotional activity.

Apple's App Store policies have been in flux across multiple dimensions since late 2025, with the November 13, 2025 App Review Guidelines update introducing age verification requirements, loan app APR caps, and expanded AI data disclosure rules. The platform's enforcement posture has been closely watched by the mobile advertising industry as Apple simultaneously expands its own advertising footprint.

Scale and user metrics

The numbers Almedia cites in its statement are specific and, in marketing terms, substantial. The $300 million in lifetime user payouts, the 70 million registered users, the 4.7 iOS App Store rating from 150,000-plus reviews, and the 350,000-plus Google Play reviews at 4.5 stars all suggest a platform with genuine scale and user engagement. In 2026, the iOS app ranked No. 1 in the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands; No. 2 in the United States and France; and top 5 across more than a dozen countries.

The company's market research survey product, which matches users with studies through demographic pre-qualification questions, is one of the data-collection activities that attracted media attention. Almedia's statement clarifies that users "voluntarily opt into surveys and pre-qualification questions and can skip them at any time." The company says it does not collect more data than necessary to deliver its services and that users' opt-in to demographic surveys is the mechanism that enables relevant matching rather than speculative data harvesting.

GDPR compliance and the German context

Almedia is a German company. Being headquartered in Berlin subjects it to some of the most stringent data protection enforcement in the world. The GDPR baseline, enforced in Germany by the Berliner Beauftragte fur Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit among other authorities, prohibits the collection and sale of personal data without lawful basis. Almedia's repeated statement that it "does not and will never sell data" is legally material in this context, not merely rhetorical.

European data protection enforcement has intensified significantly. National data protection authorities across the EU issued a combined total of over 1.1 billion euros in fines during 2025, according to the European Data Protection Board's 2025 Annual Report. The EDPB adopted its first standardised Data Protection Impact Assessment template in March 2026. Against this backdrop, Almedia's positioning as a GDPR-compliant German company is both legally significant and commercially strategic - it is a credential that matters to the European and global advertisers it works with.

Industry reaction and what happens next

The response on LinkedIn to Holländer's post was broadly supportive, with industry figures expressing solidarity and calling for a fast resolution. Several comments addressed substantive technical and policy questions rather than simply expressing sympathy. One commenter raised the possibility of alternative distribution channels enabled by the EU Digital Markets Act, noting that "thanks to the DMA, the gates are open" for a curated alternative store in Europe. Another suggested building a custom OAuth stack to create a durable cross-platform identity bridge independent of Apple's IDFA framework.

These suggestions reflect a broader industry conversation about platform dependency that predates this specific case. The DMA has required Apple to permit alternative app marketplaces in the European Union, a development PPC Land has covered in detail. Whether Almedia pursues any such alternatives depends on how quickly the appeals process with Apple and Google progresses.

As of the April 16 statement, Almedia had not disclosed a timeline for resolution. Holländer's message was direct about the company's orientation: "We are committed to operating transparently, improving where we fall short, and continuing to grow this industry in a way that benefits everyone involved." Press inquiries can be directed to [email protected].

The broader significance for the mobile advertising industry is not subtle. A platform backed by $300 million in annual advertising spend, with 70 million users, a 4.7-star App Store rating, and formal guideline compliance can be removed from both major distribution channels simultaneously, without a court ruling and without a specific policy subsection cited, following media coverage. The mechanics of that process - and what it means for any other company operating at scale on platforms that are also competitors - is a question the industry will be watching closely.

Timeline

  • 2024 - Almedia's original iOS Freecash app removed from the Apple App Store
  • Mid-2025 - Apple updates App Store guidelines, adding section 3.2.2.(x) to explicitly permit rewarded user acquisition models; Almedia acquires an existing rewards app and rebuilds it from the ground up
  • December 3, 2025 - AppsFlyer 2025 Performance Index published, showing over one-third of leading user acquisition sources are now rewarded
  • January 2026 - Freecash ranks No. 1 in the iOS App Store in the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands; No. 2 in the US and France; top 5 across more than a dozen countries
  • February 3, 2026 - Almedia press release confirms Freecash global iOS App Store rankings and 60 million registered users at the time
  • Early 2026 - Third-party affiliates create TikTok ads with misleading claims; Almedia identifies and removes them, introduces Partner Advertising Guidelines
  • April 13, 2026 - Apple removes Freecash iOS app from the App Store without prior notice
  • April 14, 2026 - Moritz Holländer publishes LinkedIn statement disclosing the iOS removal; confirms appeal filed
  • Week of April 14, 2026 - Google Play also removes the Freecash Android app following media coverage
  • April 16, 2026 - Holländer publishes full founder statement on almedia.co, confirming both removals, disputing media claims as inaccurate and misleading, and confirming active engagement with both Apple and Google to resolve the situation

Summary

Who: Almedia GmbH, a Berlin-based advertising technology company founded by Moritz Holländer and Jan Sommerfeld, operating the Freecash rewarded user acquisition platform with over 70 million registered users worldwide and more than 150 employees across five offices.

What: Both the iOS and Android versions of the Freecash app were removed from the Apple App Store and Google Play following media coverage the company describes as containing inaccurate and misleading claims. Almedia disputes allegations about data practices, incentivized installs, and app growth tactics, and has filed appeals with both platforms. The company disclosed a $300+ million annual advertising budget, $300 million in lifetime user payouts, and confirmed that affiliate-driven misleading TikTok ads appeared earlier in 2026 - a situation it says it identified and remedied.

When: The Apple removal occurred on April 13, 2026. The Google Play removal followed during the week of April 14, 2026. Holländer published his full founder statement on April 16, 2026.

Where: The removals affect global availability of Freecash on iOS and Android. Almedia is headquartered in Berlin, Germany, and operates under GDPR. The platform had active users across more than 100 countries and had ranked in the top charts of the iOS App Store in more than a dozen markets in January 2026.

Why: Apple and Google removed the apps following media coverage alleging problematic practices. Neither platform has made a public statement specifying the policy violation cited. Almedia's position is that the coverage was inaccurate, that its model is compliant with both App Store guidelines (specifically section 3.2.2.(x) added in mid-2025) and Google Play policies, and that it operates fully within GDPR as a German-registered company. The company is actively pursuing reinstatement through official appeal channels with both platforms.

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