Have you ever wondered how that crap app you installed ever got so many 5 Star ratings, or who were the 10,000,000 million other suckers who downloaded it? The answers could well be fraud and bots. There is a seedy underbelly in the international App marketplaces where less than scrupulous, and often legitimate, app publishers pay for both bulk installs and positive reviews in an attempt to score a higher rating on an app store which they hope will drive up their installs and active users.
Google has announced today that they are rolling out improved detection and filtering systems specifically designed to detect this kind of “review and install” fraud. The new system, which is most likely built on a Machine Learning platform, will be able to detect this kind of bulk manipulation and simply filter out those reviews and installs from the metrics. I have to admit I will miss 200 5 star app reviews all saying “This good app, you install this app”, but I’ll get over it.
Developers who continue to use these underhanded techniques could have their apps removed from the Play Store. If you’re an app developer and you were tempted by the services of these reviewing companies, untempt thyself.
What’s the worst example of a false reviewed app you’ve ever seen? Let us know below (if you post a link your comment will get filtered by default sorry).
you mean like blackberry?