Apple “App Store blocked more than $1.5 billion in corruption in 2020”

As the number of app store applications and the market size increase, the problem of fraud is also getting worse. In the meantime, Apple reported that it blocked more than $1.5 billion on charges of fraudulent transactions on the App Store in 2020.

Apple is also becoming the focus of Epic Games lawsuits over whether the App Store is running fairly, and is also facing numerous prevalent fraudulent app charges.

Apple said that in 2020 alone, a combination of sophisticated technology and human know-how was able to protect against transactions deemed fraudulent in excess of $1.5 billion. It is the result of deleting 1 million new applications that contain high-risk and vulnerable elements from the App Store while preventing theft in advance for money, information, and time.

Some statistics on the app store and application review process were also disclosed. In 2020, more than 180,000 app developers participated, and nearly 1 million apps with problems, and 1 million updates were rejected. In addition, more than 48,000 apps with hidden or undocumented features have been dismissed, and more than 150,000 have been canceled for buying something as a copy of spam or tricky induction.

In addition, in order to comply with the App Store guidelines, it banned changes to the behavior after app evaluation and mentioned how to commit criminal activities. There have also been reports of such fraudulent apps that casino apps disguised as children’s games have been neglected for several months. It is said that 95,000 apps that used this criminal act execution technique were deleted from the App Store.

Interestingly, I also mentioned countermeasures against fake reviews in the App Store, which were often pointed out. According to Apple, it has processed more than 1 billion evaluations and 100 million reviews since 2020, and deleted more than 250 million evaluations and opinions, saying they do not meet the neutral criteria. Apple recently introduced a new tool that verifies the authenticity of accounts that conduct ratings and reviews. The technical details of the tool are unclear, but it says it will analyze the posted reviews for signs of fraud and safely remove posted content from inactive accounts. Related information can be found here.