Pixalate Launches DEFASED Pre-Bid Blocklist: A Daily Updated List of Apps Delisted From Google Play and Apple App Store — With Bundle ID, App Name, Removal Date for 100+ Countries
LONDON, March 05, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pixalate today announced the general availability of its DEFASED (DElisted From the App StorE) pre-bid blocklists for mobile apps, now identifying which countries each app has been delisted from.
Pixalate's DEFASED blocklists identify more than 7.8 million mobile apps removed from the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. The data is delivered as two daily feeds — one covering all delisted apps, and one filtered to delisted apps that are still generating ad impressions, according to Pixalate’s data.
When app stores remove an app, no automated mechanism alerts the ad ecosystem, including SSPs, exchanges, or DSPs. The app disappears from the storefront but can remain installed on millions of devices.
Malicious actors can exploit these delisted apps to generate invalid traffic (IVT) or harvest user data without platform oversight. Pixalate's DEFASED blocklists fill that gap.
DEFASED Apps: A Granular Risk Signal For Ad Tech
Pixalate surfaces granular micro risk signals — individual, measurable indicators of risk across the programmatic supply chain. Delisted apps (DEFASED) are one of these signals, alongside 40+ IVT types, Made for Advertising (MFA) flagging, abandoned apps, fraudulent CTV Bundle IDs, SSAI fraud, privacy compliance failure checks, arbitrage transaction flagging, and more.
Apps can be removed from stores for benign reasons, but also for reasons including:
New: Country-Level Delisted App Intelligence
An app removed from one country’s app store may still be available in the same store in other countries. Pixalate’s DEFASED blocklists include country codes to identify 100+ countries the app has been delisted from.
All feeds are updated daily (estimated availability 12:00 PM) and delivered as CSV via FTP.
Use Cases: DEFASED Data Feeds
For SSPs & Exchanges
For DSPs & Agencies
Data Schema
All DEFASED pre-bid blocklist data feeds share the schema below:
Availability
DEFASED data is available via:
About Pixalate
Pixalate is a global platform specializing in privacy compliance, ad fraud prevention, and digital ad supply chain data intelligence. Founded in 2012 and recognized by UNICEF as a “key innovator” for children’s online privacy, Pixalate is trusted by regulators, data researchers, advertisers, publishers, ad tech platforms, and financial analysts across the Connected TV (CTV), mobile app, and website ecosystems. Pixalate is accredited by the MRC for the detection and filtration of Sophisticated Invalid Traffic (SIVT). pixalate.com
Disclaimer
The content of this press release reflects Pixalate's opinions with respect to factors that Pixalate believes may be useful to the digital media industry. Any data shared is grounded in Pixalate’s proprietary technology and analytics, which Pixalate is continuously evaluating and updating. Any references to outside sources should not be construed as endorsements. Pixalate's opinions are just that, opinions, which means that they are neither facts nor guarantees. Pixalate is sharing this data not to impugn the standing or reputation of any entity, person or app, but, instead, to report findings and trends pertaining to programmatic advertising activity across mobile apps in the time period studied.
Per the MRC, “‘Fraud’ is not intended to represent fraud as defined in various laws, statutes and ordinances or as conventionally used in U.S. Court or other legal proceedings, but rather a custom definition strictly for advertising measurement purposes. Also per the MRC, ‘Invalid Traffic’ is defined generally as traffic that does not meet certain ad serving quality or completeness criteria, or otherwise does not represent legitimate ad traffic that should be included in measurement counts. Among the reasons why ad traffic may be deemed invalid is it is a result of non-human traffic (spiders, bots, etc.), or activity designed to produce fraudulent traffic.”