Those of you who have been following me for a while know that I wrote an article about a year ago about the Google Play Store ignoring fake reviews. It can still be found here. Back then I stated that while I was 100% sure similar behavior exists on the Apple App Store as well I just lacked a clearly visible example to write about. Well, here we are, one year and one more similar article later.
A reader reached out to me to take a look at the French region dating app trends. So I did. The result was an almost 2000 word article with plenty of proof. I really wanted to publish this article somewhere with some actual web traffic, which by itself took me a month and a half. Here we are at the end of this small journey, but let me tell you why I don’t feel any more complete or satisfied or happy about it.
A year ago I listed some of the main principles and tricks developers and publishers use to trick people into scoring their apps higher, granting them more visibility and installs. What really, really spoils this whole thing for me is a general realization that these people that are tricked by these scammers aren’t just single users, they are the public persona of Apple and Google.
Tech giants seem to be uninterested in addressing these matters, as long as they get their 30% commission from the in-app purchases. One year passed and the industry did nothing to change or stop this kind of behavior. When I had all the materials I needed and the article was almost ready, I reached out to both Apple and the publisher of the App I wrote the article about.
No comment was given in any case and the statistics for the app did not change in the slightest. Once more I am reminded that nothing major will be done to address such issues when the companies that are supposed to guard you against fraud and scams happening in their field of influence only care about profits instead.
So please, share your experiences, educate other people, point investigators like myself in the right direction. The consumer votes with their wallet every time they buy something, and the best thing we can do when review scores and platform filters don’t work is to get educated and safeguard our time and money ourselves by voting NO on apps like these.
