Developers are emphasizing again how Apple has failed to prevent fraudulent applications out of the app store. The applications in issue impose odd fees and steal money from other genuine apps. Developers reported last week that Apple was aggressively pushing some of these applications.
An article titled “Slime relaxations” was published in the Australian App Store. However, some developers and observers claim that such applications charge exorbitant membership fees for little functionality.
Consider an app called “Jelly: Slime Simulator, ASMR.” Unless users subscribe, the app repeatedly plays video advertisements before enabling meaningful interaction. According to the report, the software “has a $13 weekly subscription” to eliminate the advertisements. (We were asked to pay almost half that amount, $7.99 per week, when we downloaded the app. We’re not sure whether the costs have changed since the original reports or if the differences are regional.)
Apple’s App Store Review Guidelines clearly state that the company would “reject costly applications that attempt to deceive consumers by charging unreasonably high fees.” While it is subjective and up to interpretation, some developers believe that this software, as well as the others included in the “Slime relaxations” article, cross the line into inappropriate behavior.
These are not new issues to be concerned about. Kosta Eleftheriou, a developer from Greece, alerted the public to a fraud software for the Apple Watch reinforced by fictitious user evaluations. After Eleftheriou’s remarks were widely publicized on Twitter and in the media, Apple withdrew the offending software from the App Store. Eleftheriou and other developers, on the other hand, went on to discover even more fraudulent applications.
A statement issued to The Verge as news of Eleftheriou’s discoveries spread across the media said that Apple was doing all it could to prevent fraudulent applications from the App Store:
We take all reports of fraudulent behavior seriously and will investigate and take appropriate action in response to each complaint. For consumers, the App Store is intended to be a secure and trustworthy location where they can download applications while also providing a fantastic chance for developers to be successful. We do not allow fraudulent behavior on the App Store, and we have strict policies in place against applications and developers who try to game the system in any way.
For example, in the first quarter of 2020, we terminated over half a million developer accounts for fraud and deleted over 60 million user reviews that were deemed spam. Because we are committed to maintaining the integrity of our platform, our Discovery Fraud team is continuously engaged in removing breaches of this kind and is continually refining its methodology as a result.
Apple keeps playing whack-a-mole with all these applications, but many developers have expressed dissatisfaction with the corporation’s slow response time, both privately and publicly. We received emails through one developer who claimed that when they found a scam app that managed to steal assets out of their genuine app and was designed specifically to siphon users away from the real app, Apple took 10 days to remove the app, whereas Google only took “1-2 days” on the Android side to eliminate the app.
After the stolen assets were recovered, the app was permitted to be re-published on Apple’s App Store. During the long waiting time, the legal app’s creator suffered a substantial loss of customers and income, while the developer of the illicit software reaped the benefits.
Claims from developers that scam applications are finding their way into iOS as Apple fights court battles to prevent third-party app stores from making their way into iOS because such alternative app shops may be less secure than Apple’s own may weaken Apple’s argument.
The business has a strong motive to put a stop to the fraudulent applications, and it seems to have the desire to do so. However, the methods Apple employs to accomplish that objective seem to be far from flawless, putting both consumers and genuine developers in danger as a consequence of this flaw.
Given the stakes involved for Apple in resolving this issue, it’s difficult to believe that the instances engineers have found are the result of malicious intent rather than inadvertent ineptitude. However, the implications for both developers and consumers may often be the same.
Read Official Blog Post – Apple Encourages Scam Apps on the App Store, Says, Developers
