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I think the difficult part is correctly attributing the behavior to the correct party. My knee jerk reaction to this article, is that if I were nefarious and I

I think the difficult part is correctly attributing the behavior to the correct party. My knee jerk reaction to this article, is that if I were nefarious and I wanted to get a competitor off the appstore, than I would game the review system on their behalf. I didn't look at it too closely, but I think part of it they said was also creating negative reviews for competitors. Like you said, it depends on the smoking gun or the strength of evidence, but without knowing what criteria Apple uses I think it's difficult to say how prudent they might be. I of course have no indication that another party is involved in this case, I just imagine that it could, along with any number of other scenarios. Without knowing what evidence or criteria apple uses to make this determination, it's impossible to say as an external observer.

codezero 10y ago
Yep. I look at it this way: Apple has a team, or teams, dedicated to detecting and stopping fraudulent behavior. People on these teams are very smart and are likely using very sophisticated methods for detecting fraudulent behavior and attributing it, and they are very sensitive to false positives. It's likely better to take no action than to take action, so when you take action, it is only when there is a very strong positive signal. Again, I'm making assumptions because this is how the work I did went. There are a lot of things that can be done before dropping an app from the store entirely, and Apple is incentivized to keep the apps in the store – they get paid when people buy them, so removing them is a last straw.
- coldcode 10y ago
  I know of one very large company that paid for downloads and 5 star reviews for years; I doubt Apple would ever do more than ask pretty please. Given how far their rating has fallen recently they might have been asked to stop. But that's a long way from punishment.

codezero 10y ago

Yep. I look at it this way: Apple has a team, or teams, dedicated to detecting and stopping fraudulent behavior. People on these teams are very smart and are likely using very sophisticated methods for detecting fraudulent behavior and attributing it, and they are very sensitive to false positives. It's likely better to take no action than to take action, so when you take action, it is only when there is a very strong positive signal. Again, I'm making assumptions because this is how the work I did went. There are a lot of things that can be done before dropping an app from the store entirely, and Apple is incentivized to keep the apps in the store – they get paid when people buy them, so removing them is a last straw.

coldcode 10y ago
I know of one very large company that paid for downloads and 5 star reviews for years; I doubt Apple would ever do more than ask pretty please. Given how far their rating has fallen recently they might have been asked to stop. But that's a long way from punishment.