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Apple Pulls 1K iPhone Apps Following Ratings Scam

by Terrence O'Brien on December 8, 2009 at 05:01 PM

Over 1,000 iPhone Apps Disappear Following Ratings Scam
Well the iPhone app store just got a whole lot smaller, thanks to Phil Schiller (senior VP of Worldwide Product Marketing) who gave app developer Molinker and all 1,011 of its products the boot.

A reader at iPhoneography, known as SCW, was browsing photography apps for his iPhone when he noticed something a bit strange -- it seemed that every app from Molinker had exactly 50 five star reviews, and they all seemed to be from the same 50 people. Whats more these 50 users seemed to only review other Molinker apps, and in horrible English. SCW reached out to the staff at iPhoneography in hopes of getting his concerns and evidence into the hands of the higher ups at Apple.

It seems that Molinker was running a ratings scam in which it used the 50 promo codes issued for each app (often issued to media for review copies) to download and review its own apps from counterfeit accounts. Using the scam it was able to boost its ratings and improve its visibility in the app store -- thus increasing sales. A week after the e-mail was sent to Phil Schiller (he's a busy guy, cut him some slack) he personally responded to SCW and iPhoneography's e-mails and promptly revoked Molinker's contract and pulled all of its apps from the store, cutting its overall size by almost one percent.

Julen, from Appfreak, actually managed to get a comment from Molinker. But the company merely expressed confusion and didn't address the allegations against them. However, in what could easily be read as an admission of defeat, Molinker's official Web site appears to be no more.

For once we're actually not mad about Apple's iron fist rule of the iPhone app store. [From: iPhoneography, MobileCrunch, Appfreak, and Appadvice Via: Engadget]

Tags: app store, apple, AppStore, molinker, scam, top

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