Developers beware: Apple will apparently not stand for fake user reviews of iPhone apps. According to reports, Apple pulled over 1,000 iPhone apps from iTunes after developer Molinker Inc. was linked to fake reviews.
The scam was discovered by iPhone user Patrick Timney, who became suspicious when he realized that so many of Molinker’s apps had strangely high ratings in the iTunes store. Timney, who considers himself an iPhone photographer and likes to try out photography apps, explained to blog iPhone Savior:
I was honestly interested in their stuff, and I went out of my way to check out their programs…I really liked their Lomo filter I saw in pictures. Just as I’m about to buy it, I realized something was wrong with the reviews.”
As he began to sift through user reviews, Timney quickly realized that some 40 five-star ratings were left for NightCam Pro, even though it had only been in the App Store less than 24 hours. The real oddity Patrick noticed, was that most of the users left one sentence reviews containing poorly written English, like this one from IOve u;
“This app is quite good, I can not stop playing it. So much love for it.”
Timney decided to report the developer to Apple and gathered evidence for an email to Apple VP Phil Schiller:
I compiled every investigative thing I could find to prove my point, including screen shot after screen shot proving that the reviews were bogus,” Timney said. “I personally emailed Phil Schiller. On Saturday afternoon he sent me an email from his home, telling me they just removed all the Molinker apps from the App Store along with the ratings.”
Timney and iPhone photography site iPhoneography believe Molinker was trading promo codes for five-star reviews. Not surprisingly, Molinker’s website has been pulled from the web.
Molinker’s apps included mainly travel guides like Italy (Travelto) and various iterations that sold for $0.99. Other apps included The World Factbook Lite, Global Talk, PPT Gurus and EasyCurrency. PPT Gurus, a photography app that helped users remove the backgrounds in photos, had a perfect five-star rating (out of 80 reviews) on iTunes before it was pulled.
The gold rush of the App Store has seen quite a number of shady business practices since its inception. In August 2009, developer Khalid Shaikh had several hundred apps removed from the App Store after complaints of intellectual property theft.
In September 2009, the developer of the app mogoRoad used the phone numbers he culled from users who downloaded a free version of the app to make telemarketing calls in hopes of convincing users to purchase a paid version.