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Disclaimer: I'm the developer of FlickType and have been advocating for this change for months now, after being severely affected by scam competitors on the App

Disclaimer: I'm the developer of FlickType and have been advocating for this change for months now, after being severely affected by scam competitors on the App Store. I have also filed a lawsuit against Apple, partly because of this. This is a welcome change, but what’s most important is what Apple actually does with the reports - which I’m definitely going to be keeping a close eye on. Of note, this “New” Report-a-Problem button is not actually new: it used to be there but Apple decided to remove it years ago, while App Store scams were - and still are - running rampant: https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/06/with-return-of-report-a-problem-on-app-store-apple-invites-public-to-help-fight-fraud/ https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/06/with-return-of-report-a-pr...

bberenberg 5y ago
I am interested in what they will do around false reports. I hear about negative review attacks from competitors on Amazon listings, so it will be interesting to see how this is weaponized and how Apple responds.
- OldHand2018 5y ago
  > Now App Store product pages on iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and macOS Monterey display a “Report a Problem“ link, so users can more easily report concerns with content they’ve purchased or downloaded. It appears that reports are going to be attributed to actual accounts, which should enable Apple to identify abusers more easily.
  - jsjohnst 5y ago
    > It appears that reports are going to be attributed to actual accounts, which should enable Apple to identify abusers more easily. I don't feel X == Y in this case. Account creation is not a high enough bar to block abusers IMHO. Amazon reviews require accounts too, but that obviously doesn't stop the negative review attacks which GP mentioned.
    - DelightOne 5y ago
      Maybe correlate with regular spending.
      - r00fus 5y ago
        Quite easy/cheap to pass that bar - have your 100-1000 sockpuppets spend a few $$ on a subscription (which may or may not be money coming back to you in some fashion), then buy competitor apps and report them as scams. Possibly negated with some form of (even Apple-internal) web-of-trust measurement of account validity.
        DelightOne 5y ago
        And adding human review completes it. The other measures are just to reduce the amount of spam.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      I feel like App Store accounts require a credit card number, and they do an authorization for a few cents to check if it’s real. At least they did years ago when I tried to set up a relative’s iOS device with a fake credit card number.
      - eigen 5y ago
        you can use an Apple App Store account without credit card or other payment info. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204034 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204034
        lotsofpulp 5y ago
        Interesting, I wonder if that changed or if they were not up front about it before.
    - withinboredom 5y ago
      I’m sure like most models, the weight of your submission will largely be determined by multiple factors, such as the age of the account, how much money you’ve spent, whether you’ve spent money on the app being reported, how many devices are connected to the account and for how long, etc. Not all complaints are created equal and it allows them to attribute a “trust factor” across several metrics.
  - ensignavenger 5y ago
    So if are fraudulent ripoff of your app gets uploaded by some one else, in order for you to report it, you have to purchase the fraudulent ripoff app?
    - floatingatoll 5y ago
      If you have an Apple developer account in good standing, at WWDC they introduced a separate reporting page for you to use, that doesn't require to you have purchased the app first. There's also a pre-existing, years-old process for you to report lookalikes and such.
      - ensignavenger 5y ago
        Cool, I'm not an Apple dev so I wasn't aware of this... sounds like for some devs though these reports havn't been taken seriously in the past.
- mountainb 5y ago
  It works as sabotage on Amazon listings because Amazon uses reviews with certain keywords as lead indicators for product contamination or other issues. So if you want to sabotage a competitor's vitamin pill the day before Prime Day, you have an entire building full of people leave variations of "taking this made me feel nauseous" or "this gave me a headache" and "weird chemical odor" after purchasing the product. Either the automated systems will flag it or complaints will flag it for review. Software can't actually poison people in a physical sense, so generally the software marketplaces care less about signals from reviews like those.
  - lowercased 5y ago
    Why are those reviews included at all if they weren't "verified purchases"? I guess there's some utility in it - you already own product X and want to let people know about something (positive or negative) but... this blatant sabotage from obvious non-customers/users is crazy.
    - mountainb 5y ago
      You would pay your manipulators to leave verified purchases. In the black market for manipulative reviews that comes at a premium. You can also get similar effects with unverified reviews on some product types (consumables, beauty products, etc.) It's not non obvious if you bribe someone who uses an American shipping address to do it.
  - fortran77 5y ago
    Now I know why I see the phrase “weird chemical odor” on reviews for things like facemasks masks a lot.
    - mountainb 5y ago
      They're hoping that it gives it a hazmat or pesticide false flag. Pesticide false flags are extremely common even for things for which it would make no sense whatsoever. Anything that says 'filter' for example will often result in a pesticide false flag.
markrote 5y ago
This article gives more detail on the excellent work OP @keleftheriou has been doing to track down scam/fraud apps in the App Store. https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/21/22385859/apple-app-store-scams-fraud-review-enforcement-top-grossing-kosta-eleftheriou https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/21/22385859/apple-app-store-...
- keleftheriou 5y ago
  Thank you, I really appreciate that.

bberenberg 5y ago

I am interested in what they will do around false reports. I hear about negative review attacks from competitors on Amazon listings, so it will be interesting to see how this is weaponized and how Apple responds.

OldHand2018 5y ago
> Now App Store product pages on iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and macOS Monterey display a “Report a Problem“ link, so users can more easily report concerns with content they’ve purchased or downloaded. It appears that reports are going to be attributed to actual accounts, which should enable Apple to identify abusers more easily.
- jsjohnst 5y ago
  > It appears that reports are going to be attributed to actual accounts, which should enable Apple to identify abusers more easily. I don't feel X == Y in this case. Account creation is not a high enough bar to block abusers IMHO. Amazon reviews require accounts too, but that obviously doesn't stop the negative review attacks which GP mentioned.
  - DelightOne 5y ago
    Maybe correlate with regular spending.
    - r00fus 5y ago
      Quite easy/cheap to pass that bar - have your 100-1000 sockpuppets spend a few $$ on a subscription (which may or may not be money coming back to you in some fashion), then buy competitor apps and report them as scams. Possibly negated with some form of (even Apple-internal) web-of-trust measurement of account validity.
      - DelightOne 5y ago
        And adding human review completes it. The other measures are just to reduce the amount of spam.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    I feel like App Store accounts require a credit card number, and they do an authorization for a few cents to check if it’s real. At least they did years ago when I tried to set up a relative’s iOS device with a fake credit card number.
    - eigen 5y ago
      you can use an Apple App Store account without credit card or other payment info. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204034 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204034
      - lotsofpulp 5y ago
        Interesting, I wonder if that changed or if they were not up front about it before.
  - withinboredom 5y ago
    I’m sure like most models, the weight of your submission will largely be determined by multiple factors, such as the age of the account, how much money you’ve spent, whether you’ve spent money on the app being reported, how many devices are connected to the account and for how long, etc. Not all complaints are created equal and it allows them to attribute a “trust factor” across several metrics.
- ensignavenger 5y ago
  So if are fraudulent ripoff of your app gets uploaded by some one else, in order for you to report it, you have to purchase the fraudulent ripoff app?
  - floatingatoll 5y ago
    If you have an Apple developer account in good standing, at WWDC they introduced a separate reporting page for you to use, that doesn't require to you have purchased the app first. There's also a pre-existing, years-old process for you to report lookalikes and such.
    - ensignavenger 5y ago
      Cool, I'm not an Apple dev so I wasn't aware of this... sounds like for some devs though these reports havn't been taken seriously in the past.
mountainb 5y ago
It works as sabotage on Amazon listings because Amazon uses reviews with certain keywords as lead indicators for product contamination or other issues. So if you want to sabotage a competitor's vitamin pill the day before Prime Day, you have an entire building full of people leave variations of "taking this made me feel nauseous" or "this gave me a headache" and "weird chemical odor" after purchasing the product. Either the automated systems will flag it or complaints will flag it for review. Software can't actually poison people in a physical sense, so generally the software marketplaces care less about signals from reviews like those.
- lowercased 5y ago
  Why are those reviews included at all if they weren't "verified purchases"? I guess there's some utility in it - you already own product X and want to let people know about something (positive or negative) but... this blatant sabotage from obvious non-customers/users is crazy.
  - mountainb 5y ago
    You would pay your manipulators to leave verified purchases. In the black market for manipulative reviews that comes at a premium. You can also get similar effects with unverified reviews on some product types (consumables, beauty products, etc.) It's not non obvious if you bribe someone who uses an American shipping address to do it.
- fortran77 5y ago
  Now I know why I see the phrase “weird chemical odor” on reviews for things like facemasks masks a lot.
  - mountainb 5y ago
    They're hoping that it gives it a hazmat or pesticide false flag. Pesticide false flags are extremely common even for things for which it would make no sense whatsoever. Anything that says 'filter' for example will often result in a pesticide false flag.

markrote 5y ago

This article gives more detail on the excellent work OP @keleftheriou has been doing to track down scam/fraud apps in the App Store. https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/21/22385859/apple-app-store-scams-fraud-review-enforcement-top-grossing-kosta-eleftheriou https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/21/22385859/apple-app-store-...

keleftheriou 5y ago
Thank you, I really appreciate that.