About a quarter of apps on Google Play (GOOG) have questionable reviews, but on Apple’s (AAPL) App Store, the figure is as high as one-sixth.
According to Which?, both the Apple App Store and Google Play fail to prevent fake and questionable reviews from entering their platforms.
Consumer groups have conducted extensive analysis and found that millions of consumers are unknowingly exposed to apps that use fake reviews to trick their way to the top of two of the world’s most famous app stores. It suggests that you may be giving your personal data and money to us.
which one? After a quick Google search and finding many companies providing review services for app stores, I first came across an app using fake 5-star reviews. It can even appear at the top of search results as an advertised business that pays Google while selling fake reviews of apps on Google’s store.
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App review broker services can help boost your app’s ranking by offering bulk downloads, reviews, or upvotes. Apps that have been downloaded many times appear to be more popular. Upvotes, on the other hand, drive what users see in the app store. Reviews are automatically sorted by ‘helpful’ or ‘relevant’ so the ones with the most upvotes appear first. This means developers can surface positive reviews and fill in negative reviews.
One fake review broker site, reviewlancer, claims to have sold around 53,000 reviews and exchanged over 130,000 reviews between apps. Fake review survey.
Rocío Concha, which one? “Apple and Google have failed to prevent fake and questionable reviews from entering their app stores, putting consumers at greater risk of being enticed to download apps enhanced by malicious tactics. .”
In the Google Play store, a quarter (25%) of apps in the Health & Fitness category and one in five (22%) of apps in the Games category showed all four red flags of questionable reviews .
In the Apple App Store, 1 in 6 (17%) apps in the Health & Fitness category and 1 in 7 (15%) in the Games category raised 4 red flags for questionable reviews. rice field.
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Another red flag is obviously the bulk upload of reviews. which one? We found that there were clusters of 4- and 5-star reviews over a few days, followed by very few over the next few weeks or months, followed by the next spike. These surges may coincide with the adoption of review brokers. The well-known apps rarely experienced large spikes in activity and consistently saw a modest increase in reviews.
which one? We also looked at review length. Five-star reviews for dating apps that showed signs of suspicious activity were, on average, less than 20 characters long, significantly shorter than 1- or 2-star reviews for apps. A five-star review was nearly 150 characters long.
The government will introduce reforms to crack down on fake reviews through digital marketplaces, competition and consumer legislation.
Mr Concha said:
Apple said submitting abusive reviews violates the Apple Developer Program License Agreement, and developers who try to cheat the system may have their apps removed.
The company added that it has systematically detected and blocked over 94 million reviews and over 170 million ratings in 2021. This is because it does not meet the moderation criteria in 2021. An additional 610,000 reviews were removed after publication based on customer concern submissions and additional human evaluation.
which one? We have contacted Google with our findings. said it? This means that we do not provide research statements for reviews unless all of the underlying research for Which? is provided.
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