9 ms·

If the fake reviews are indeed the reason why the apps were taken off the store, that does strike me as an inappropriate action. Take down the reviews, yes. But

If the fake reviews are indeed the reason why the apps were taken off the store, that does strike me as an inappropriate action. Take down the reviews, yes. But closing the developer account creates a big opportunity to eliminate competition by buying fake reviews for your competitors. There's also nothing developers can do to prevent this since they can't curate or reject reviews from what I know. That said, other commenters are pointing out a very large revenue figure relative to the popularity of these apps. That smells more like money laundering or fraud. In that scenario, Apple should have been more specific in their communications.

beeboobaa 3y ago
It's apple punishing you for their own failure to moderate the reviews posted to their store, which they're charging you $100+30% to access.
- aaomidi 3y ago
  Considering how much data Apple also has on their users, it’s insane that they haven’t yet solved this problem.
  - KingOfCoders 3y ago
    Why would they if they can keep aka escrow $100k?
    - selectodude 3y ago
      $100k is literally meaningless to Apple.
      - nottheengineer 3y ago
        If any amount of money was meaningless to apple, they wouldn't be where they are today.
        coldtea 3y ago
        That's not how money or business works. Opportunity costs means that many "amounts of money" can be meaningless to the business depending on the activity to get to them, the negatives (from processing hasles like lawsuits to PR and brand image), their overall strategy and focus, and other such concerns. A company at Apple's level absolutely doesn't see "frozing $100K" from random devs (or the amount that would result in aggregate from all those freezings) as a profit center.
        TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
        The irrationality is the problem. $100k is nothing. The loss of developer good will is worth far more than that. But Apple doesn't care, because it relies on shady apps for a significant part of App Store income. So the decision is "Do we make significant money from addictive games and scams and tolerate the occasional false positive that nukes a legitimate developer? Or do we spend significant resources curating an App Store full of quality apps and no noise, with high quality support for devs with problems?" Guess which one of those is going to bring in significantly more money.
        KingOfCoders 3y ago
        "The loss of developer good will is worth far more than that." This has been going on for a long time. Developer good will lost? Then they can just go to the other iOS store to sell there apps, oops.
        KingOfCoders 3y ago
        From the large corps I've worked with - those that made $B in revenue - they do everything to reach rev goals they told investors they would reach, every $100k counts. If you think a large corp is throwing away money, think twice.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - kylebenzle 3y ago
        My experience is that for ever one event we hear about or makes the news there are 10-100x that suffer in silence and never get heard.
    - brookst 3y ago
      The accounting hassles of escrow and eventual escheatment of the $100k will probably cost Apple more than $100k. This is not a profit center.
      - KingOfCoders 3y ago
        I see it more like coupons, you escrow $1M and b/c companies go bankrupt, management change etc. in the end you keep some of the money.
    - ericbarrett 3y ago
      Apple's revenue is $12,000 per second.
      - KingOfCoders 3y ago
        The revenue you make is not important, the growth in revenue is important.
        ericbarrett 3y ago
        In the time it took you to compose this reply, Apple made more money (in profit, not revenue) than the amount in TFA. Your cynicism borders on conspiracy theory!
  - KennyBlanken 3y ago
    What are you on about? Apple collects substantially less data about their users than anyone else.
    - aaomidi 3y ago
      They have cryptographic proof of what types of devices you’re on. There’s a lot of metadata that they have access to because of their closed ecosystem.
- stickfigure 3y ago
  You can moderate reviews of your app in the App Store?? How does that work?
  - Manuel_D 3y ago
    you cant, "It's apple punishing you for their own failure..."
    - irrational 3y ago
      That sounds like the modus operandi of so many companies. Google can’t figure out how to make money without ads, so they punish people (blocking ad blockers on chrome and not allowing access to YouTube if using an ad blocker) because of their own failure.
      - rafram 3y ago
        > Google can’t figure out how to make money without ads They can and they have. YouTube Premium exists! You can pay for it! The two business models that are feasible for YouTube are (1) free and you have to see ads and (2) paid and you don’t have to see ads. They offer both. I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect to be allowed to pick (1) but opt out of the ad side of the bargain. Their ad-blocking shenanigans are obnoxious, but it’s disingenuous to claim that they “can’t figure out” how to monetize YouTube without ads when they actually do provide that option.
        chongli 3y ago
        I subscribe to YouTube premium because I think it's worth it. Lots of people have called me a "sucker" or worse, a Google shill, for paying money for a "free service." These same people then turned around and threw a temper tantrum when YouTube started detecting and punishing ad blockers. I think after years of enjoying a free service people have become extremely entitled about it.
        seec 3y ago
- tsunamifury 3y ago
  If you’ve ever been in the App Store for any length of time you’ll see how lazily retributive Apple is. It’s not a company I’d ever do business with.
  - klabb3 3y ago
    Is it even fair to call it “doing business with a company” when you’re basically just probing an opaque automated system? Sure, if you’re a supplier or say large advertiser, perhaps you are “doing business” but this sounds more like fighting for scraps together with a mix of honest and dishonest players hoping that the anti-fraud gods show you mercy and bless you with rev-share.
  - api 3y ago
    Is Play Store or Steam any better? All these stores are basically little monopolies with zero incentive to not suck. They also suck from a user point of view. Search is terrible, they’re full of shovelware, etc.
    - djbusby 3y ago
      Play Store is the same level of crap as Apple App store (experience across multiple projects for like 10+ years). No experience on Steam but a few indie-game devs I know think it's OK. I've not heard them complain like App-devs on those phone-stores.
    - nullindividual 3y ago
      Steam will moderate or at least put a notice when a game is being review bombed for things unrelated to the game itself, such as a controversy with the developer. https://www.pcgamer.com/valve-takes-steps-against-steam-review-bombs/ https://www.pcgamer.com/valve-takes-steps-against-steam-revi...
      - Dylan16807 3y ago
        Though sometimes they do that when the reviews are about the game itself.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
sealeck 3y ago
> In that scenario, Apple should have been more specific in their communications. Often AML policy prohibits this because it could be constituted as tipping off the offender.
- LocalH 3y ago
  This is garbage. Imagine if other law worked this way. "We're going to arrest you and put you in jail, but we won't tell you what you're accused of, nor give you a proper appeal." During an investigation, I get it. After charges have been leveled? Most certainly not.
  - lolinder 3y ago
    Charges haven't been leveled yet. In theory, if Apple suspects money laundering they should both freeze the account and tell the authorities. The authorities want time to piece together their case before the money launderers disappear, so they ask for Apple to keep quiet until they have a chance to review everything.
  - prosody 3y ago
    In addition to what the sibling comment said, the developer does in fact have a recourse to the legal system, which they wrote that they are preparing to make use of. Attempts to analogize the TOS dispute mechanisms of companies to the legal system frequently fail to note that, at least where money is involved, they exist within the legal system, not in a bubble.
- stouset 3y ago
  As someone with a long time in fintech, if your account is closed without explanation and nobody will talk to you, this is with almost 100% certainty the answer. It sucks because people who have been clearly committing fraud then plaster you with negative reviews and sob stories but casually fail to mention it was their own egregiously fraudulent activity that caused their account to be shut down. And it also sucks because people who may not have actually done anything wrong get caught up by these controls sometimes and have effectively zero recourse.
mariopt 3y ago
You can consider, virtually, all reviews fake in any mobile store. Sometimes I read the reviews and wonder: Who on earth wrote this? Honestly, it's up to Apple to moderate the reviews and detect review farms. If posting fake reviews is all it takes to take down my competitors out of the store, it's game on.
- lencastre 3y ago
  I believe you need to own the app to review it, so there is a cost to consider. Maybe it’s freemium or just a dollar but regardless you need to create an account, buy it, review it,…
  - tempest_ 3y ago
    if your app is just a dollar or two like most are a couple grand to pump the reviews seems like a no brainier
  - hbn 3y ago
    Barely any apps get you to pay upfront any more, in my experience most are free to download and it's either a trial, or so ad-ridden that it's unusable without an in-app purchase. Either way, any account could leave a review without paying.
judge2020 3y ago
This was talked about by Phillip Shoemaker (head of App Store Review 2009-2016) in this talk[0], where some developers figured out that if they hired marketing firms to commit review fraud on a competitor’s app, their competitor would get terminated because there’s no clear way to actually attribute the fraud to the developer. I guess the App Store fraud prevention team hasn’t necessarily found a good solution yet. 0: https://youtu.be/tJeEuxn9mug?t=22m57s&si=CVfkqSqEULyFTx-8 https://youtu.be/tJeEuxn9mug?t=22m57s&si=CVfkqSqEULyFTx-8
- echelon 3y ago
  > I guess the App Store fraud prevention team hasn’t necessarily found a good solution yet. The most essential device of the century is owned by two companies. The ability for them to completely control software and business activities on top of something that is almost as essential as public transportation is appalling. The DOJ needs to remove the "app store" racket for essential computing devices. Software needs to be freely installable, sans vendor control, unfair competition, scare tactics, mandatory taxation, and adversarial ad placement by the cellphone duopoly. Not only is cell phone compute freedom essential, but we desperately need more than just two vendors.
  - judge2020 3y ago
    One of the main draws of iOS is its resistance to malware, adware, and outright scam apps. Requiring third party app stores disproportionately harms those that purchased the device specifically for these purposes (such as people at higher risks of being targeted by nation state actors). And this isn’t something that can be addressed with a new uber-secure product just for these people, because the EU will deem it a gatekeeper if enough people buy it - so I guess you have to create a hard cutoff for how many can purchase the product ever, or means test “do you actually deserve security?”.
    - echelon 3y ago
      > Requiring third party app stores No stores. Web install. Web first class. No "only Safari/webkit engine" limitation. If Apple is so genius, they can solve malware with all of those engineering minds and dollars they have. They don't need to hind behind a store to do that. The tools and techniques are readily available and accessible for a company of their size and stature. Permission layer, app runtime heuristics, and fingerprints are a start. They can do this. They just don't want to / have to, because they're currently Gods of the Phone Universe with unfettered and completely unfair control over "their domain".
adastra22 3y ago
> In that scenario, Apple should have been more specific in their communications. In that scenario Apple is highly constrained in what they can say.
- burnte 3y ago
  By who? If it's by internal rules, they are not constrained, they choose not to share info.
  - suoduandao3 3y ago
    probably whatever legal investigation is happening about the real source of the funds.
  - adastra22 3y ago
    You're not allowed to tell users that an account has been flagged for criminal use, as this tips off the user and makes you an accomplice.
    - Aeolun 3y ago
      Then just let the account run? Anyone actually using their account for criminal purposes is not going to be surprised their account is blocked, and will have a very good idea of why it happened.
      - adastra22 3y ago
        If you suspect criminal operation you have to shut it down. What you tell the customer is up to you, but if you're right and you tipped them off then you could get prosecuted as well.
2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
I've been told this is OK because there is plenty of real competition in this space so developers can vote with their feet and develop on other platforms.
SenAnder 3y ago
> That smells more like money laundering or fraud. Does Apple get to decide this, and just keep the money, without involving any court of law? Someone mentioned anti-money laundering laws and secrecy, but can that manifest as losing your money, without trial or even being informed that you're accused of anything? That would seem to violate a few constitutional rights.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- eastbound 3y ago
  If Apple says it is laundering, wouldn’t they claim it is not your money. And wait for every payer to complain. Evil but corporations often are.
moralestapia 3y ago
[flagged]
- sp0rk 3y ago
  > Could you enlighten us? How does one launder money through some iOS apps? You use stolen credit cards to purchase the app. It's a very common method of fraud and does not require a criminal mastermind or a group of people to perform. I have no opinion on what happened in this particular case, but it's crazy to imply that nobody is doing this stuff.
  - moralestapia 3y ago
    You answered to the wrong comment maybe? Because that is not money laundering.
    - quickthrowman 3y ago
      It sounds like you have no idea what money laundering actually is, to be honest. Money laundering is concealing the source of illegally obtained money. You use stolen credit cards to buy gift cards (or just defraud people to obtain gift cards). This is dirty money. You pay it to yourself on the App Store by getting an app listed and buying it. Apple then deposits money (minus their 30% cut) in your bank account, which is clean money. How is that not money laundering?
      - moralestapia 3y ago
        [flagged]
        quickthrowman 3y ago
        > That's the dumbest way one could launder money. So now you’re admitting the scenario I proposed is money laundering. Have a nice day :)
JanSt 3y ago
The money is not outstanding for an app
viktorcode 3y ago
Most likely it is the reason. There were cases of accounts shutdown due to the developers writing reviews from other accounts for their apps on App Store.
8ytecoder 3y ago
AFAIK, you can’t be very specific when it’s money laundering or something similar. Apple would have reported it and give a vague non-specific reason.

beeboobaa 3y ago

It's apple punishing you for their own failure to moderate the reviews posted to their store, which they're charging you $100+30% to access.

aaomidi 3y ago
Considering how much data Apple also has on their users, it’s insane that they haven’t yet solved this problem.
- KingOfCoders 3y ago
  Why would they if they can keep aka escrow $100k?
  - selectodude 3y ago
    $100k is literally meaningless to Apple.
    - nottheengineer 3y ago
      If any amount of money was meaningless to apple, they wouldn't be where they are today.
      - coldtea 3y ago
        That's not how money or business works. Opportunity costs means that many "amounts of money" can be meaningless to the business depending on the activity to get to them, the negatives (from processing hasles like lawsuits to PR and brand image), their overall strategy and focus, and other such concerns. A company at Apple's level absolutely doesn't see "frozing $100K" from random devs (or the amount that would result in aggregate from all those freezings) as a profit center.
        TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
        The irrationality is the problem. $100k is nothing. The loss of developer good will is worth far more than that. But Apple doesn't care, because it relies on shady apps for a significant part of App Store income. So the decision is "Do we make significant money from addictive games and scams and tolerate the occasional false positive that nukes a legitimate developer? Or do we spend significant resources curating an App Store full of quality apps and no noise, with high quality support for devs with problems?" Guess which one of those is going to bring in significantly more money.
        KingOfCoders 3y ago
        "The loss of developer good will is worth far more than that." This has been going on for a long time. Developer good will lost? Then they can just go to the other iOS store to sell there apps, oops.
        KingOfCoders 3y ago
        From the large corps I've worked with - those that made $B in revenue - they do everything to reach rev goals they told investors they would reach, every $100k counts. If you think a large corp is throwing away money, think twice.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    - kylebenzle 3y ago
      My experience is that for ever one event we hear about or makes the news there are 10-100x that suffer in silence and never get heard.
  - brookst 3y ago
    The accounting hassles of escrow and eventual escheatment of the $100k will probably cost Apple more than $100k. This is not a profit center.
    - KingOfCoders 3y ago
      I see it more like coupons, you escrow $1M and b/c companies go bankrupt, management change etc. in the end you keep some of the money.
  - ericbarrett 3y ago
    Apple's revenue is $12,000 per second.
    - KingOfCoders 3y ago
      The revenue you make is not important, the growth in revenue is important.
      - ericbarrett 3y ago
        In the time it took you to compose this reply, Apple made more money (in profit, not revenue) than the amount in TFA. Your cynicism borders on conspiracy theory!
- KennyBlanken 3y ago
  What are you on about? Apple collects substantially less data about their users than anyone else.
  - aaomidi 3y ago
    They have cryptographic proof of what types of devices you’re on. There’s a lot of metadata that they have access to because of their closed ecosystem.
stickfigure 3y ago
You can moderate reviews of your app in the App Store?? How does that work?
- Manuel_D 3y ago
  you cant, "It's apple punishing you for their own failure..."
  - irrational 3y ago
    That sounds like the modus operandi of so many companies. Google can’t figure out how to make money without ads, so they punish people (blocking ad blockers on chrome and not allowing access to YouTube if using an ad blocker) because of their own failure.
    - rafram 3y ago
      > Google can’t figure out how to make money without ads They can and they have. YouTube Premium exists! You can pay for it! The two business models that are feasible for YouTube are (1) free and you have to see ads and (2) paid and you don’t have to see ads. They offer both. I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect to be allowed to pick (1) but opt out of the ad side of the bargain. Their ad-blocking shenanigans are obnoxious, but it’s disingenuous to claim that they “can’t figure out” how to monetize YouTube without ads when they actually do provide that option.
      - chongli 3y ago
        I subscribe to YouTube premium because I think it's worth it. Lots of people have called me a "sucker" or worse, a Google shill, for paying money for a "free service." These same people then turned around and threw a temper tantrum when YouTube started detecting and punishing ad blockers. I think after years of enjoying a free service people have become extremely entitled about it.
        seec 3y ago
tsunamifury 3y ago
If you’ve ever been in the App Store for any length of time you’ll see how lazily retributive Apple is. It’s not a company I’d ever do business with.
- klabb3 3y ago
  Is it even fair to call it “doing business with a company” when you’re basically just probing an opaque automated system? Sure, if you’re a supplier or say large advertiser, perhaps you are “doing business” but this sounds more like fighting for scraps together with a mix of honest and dishonest players hoping that the anti-fraud gods show you mercy and bless you with rev-share.
- api 3y ago
  Is Play Store or Steam any better? All these stores are basically little monopolies with zero incentive to not suck. They also suck from a user point of view. Search is terrible, they’re full of shovelware, etc.
  - djbusby 3y ago
    Play Store is the same level of crap as Apple App store (experience across multiple projects for like 10+ years). No experience on Steam but a few indie-game devs I know think it's OK. I've not heard them complain like App-devs on those phone-stores.
  - nullindividual 3y ago
    Steam will moderate or at least put a notice when a game is being review bombed for things unrelated to the game itself, such as a controversy with the developer. https://www.pcgamer.com/valve-takes-steps-against-steam-review-bombs/ https://www.pcgamer.com/valve-takes-steps-against-steam-revi...
    - Dylan16807 3y ago
      Though sometimes they do that when the reviews are about the game itself.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

sealeck 3y ago

> In that scenario, Apple should have been more specific in their communications. Often AML policy prohibits this because it could be constituted as tipping off the offender.

LocalH 3y ago
This is garbage. Imagine if other law worked this way. "We're going to arrest you and put you in jail, but we won't tell you what you're accused of, nor give you a proper appeal." During an investigation, I get it. After charges have been leveled? Most certainly not.
- lolinder 3y ago
  Charges haven't been leveled yet. In theory, if Apple suspects money laundering they should both freeze the account and tell the authorities. The authorities want time to piece together their case before the money launderers disappear, so they ask for Apple to keep quiet until they have a chance to review everything.
- prosody 3y ago
  In addition to what the sibling comment said, the developer does in fact have a recourse to the legal system, which they wrote that they are preparing to make use of. Attempts to analogize the TOS dispute mechanisms of companies to the legal system frequently fail to note that, at least where money is involved, they exist within the legal system, not in a bubble.
stouset 3y ago
As someone with a long time in fintech, if your account is closed without explanation and nobody will talk to you, this is with almost 100% certainty the answer. It sucks because people who have been clearly committing fraud then plaster you with negative reviews and sob stories but casually fail to mention it was their own egregiously fraudulent activity that caused their account to be shut down. And it also sucks because people who may not have actually done anything wrong get caught up by these controls sometimes and have effectively zero recourse.

mariopt 3y ago

You can consider, virtually, all reviews fake in any mobile store. Sometimes I read the reviews and wonder: Who on earth wrote this? Honestly, it's up to Apple to moderate the reviews and detect review farms. If posting fake reviews is all it takes to take down my competitors out of the store, it's game on.

lencastre 3y ago
I believe you need to own the app to review it, so there is a cost to consider. Maybe it’s freemium or just a dollar but regardless you need to create an account, buy it, review it,…
- tempest_ 3y ago
  if your app is just a dollar or two like most are a couple grand to pump the reviews seems like a no brainier
- hbn 3y ago
  Barely any apps get you to pay upfront any more, in my experience most are free to download and it's either a trial, or so ad-ridden that it's unusable without an in-app purchase. Either way, any account could leave a review without paying.

judge2020 3y ago

This was talked about by Phillip Shoemaker (head of App Store Review 2009-2016) in this talk[0], where some developers figured out that if they hired marketing firms to commit review fraud on a competitor’s app, their competitor would get terminated because there’s no clear way to actually attribute the fraud to the developer. I guess the App Store fraud prevention team hasn’t necessarily found a good solution yet. 0: https://youtu.be/tJeEuxn9mug?t=22m57s&si=CVfkqSqEULyFTx-8 https://youtu.be/tJeEuxn9mug?t=22m57s&si=CVfkqSqEULyFTx-8

echelon 3y ago
> I guess the App Store fraud prevention team hasn’t necessarily found a good solution yet. The most essential device of the century is owned by two companies. The ability for them to completely control software and business activities on top of something that is almost as essential as public transportation is appalling. The DOJ needs to remove the "app store" racket for essential computing devices. Software needs to be freely installable, sans vendor control, unfair competition, scare tactics, mandatory taxation, and adversarial ad placement by the cellphone duopoly. Not only is cell phone compute freedom essential, but we desperately need more than just two vendors.
- judge2020 3y ago
  One of the main draws of iOS is its resistance to malware, adware, and outright scam apps. Requiring third party app stores disproportionately harms those that purchased the device specifically for these purposes (such as people at higher risks of being targeted by nation state actors). And this isn’t something that can be addressed with a new uber-secure product just for these people, because the EU will deem it a gatekeeper if enough people buy it - so I guess you have to create a hard cutoff for how many can purchase the product ever, or means test “do you actually deserve security?”.
  - echelon 3y ago
    > Requiring third party app stores No stores. Web install. Web first class. No "only Safari/webkit engine" limitation. If Apple is so genius, they can solve malware with all of those engineering minds and dollars they have. They don't need to hind behind a store to do that. The tools and techniques are readily available and accessible for a company of their size and stature. Permission layer, app runtime heuristics, and fingerprints are a start. They can do this. They just don't want to / have to, because they're currently Gods of the Phone Universe with unfettered and completely unfair control over "their domain".

adastra22 3y ago

> In that scenario, Apple should have been more specific in their communications. In that scenario Apple is highly constrained in what they can say.

burnte 3y ago
By who? If it's by internal rules, they are not constrained, they choose not to share info.
- suoduandao3 3y ago
  probably whatever legal investigation is happening about the real source of the funds.
- adastra22 3y ago
  You're not allowed to tell users that an account has been flagged for criminal use, as this tips off the user and makes you an accomplice.
  - Aeolun 3y ago
    Then just let the account run? Anyone actually using their account for criminal purposes is not going to be surprised their account is blocked, and will have a very good idea of why it happened.
    - adastra22 3y ago
      If you suspect criminal operation you have to shut it down. What you tell the customer is up to you, but if you're right and you tipped them off then you could get prosecuted as well.

2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago

I've been told this is OK because there is plenty of real competition in this space so developers can vote with their feet and develop on other platforms.

SenAnder 3y ago

> That smells more like money laundering or fraud. Does Apple get to decide this, and just keep the money, without involving any court of law? Someone mentioned anti-money laundering laws and secrecy, but can that manifest as losing your money, without trial or even being informed that you're accused of anything? That would seem to violate a few constitutional rights.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
eastbound 3y ago
If Apple says it is laundering, wouldn’t they claim it is not your money. And wait for every payer to complain. Evil but corporations often are.

moralestapia 3y ago

[flagged]

sp0rk 3y ago
> Could you enlighten us? How does one launder money through some iOS apps? You use stolen credit cards to purchase the app. It's a very common method of fraud and does not require a criminal mastermind or a group of people to perform. I have no opinion on what happened in this particular case, but it's crazy to imply that nobody is doing this stuff.
- moralestapia 3y ago
  You answered to the wrong comment maybe? Because that is not money laundering.
  - quickthrowman 3y ago
    It sounds like you have no idea what money laundering actually is, to be honest. Money laundering is concealing the source of illegally obtained money. You use stolen credit cards to buy gift cards (or just defraud people to obtain gift cards). This is dirty money. You pay it to yourself on the App Store by getting an app listed and buying it. Apple then deposits money (minus their 30% cut) in your bank account, which is clean money. How is that not money laundering?
    - moralestapia 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - quickthrowman 3y ago
        > That's the dumbest way one could launder money. So now you’re admitting the scenario I proposed is money laundering. Have a nice day :)

JanSt 3y ago

The money is not outstanding for an app

viktorcode 3y ago

Most likely it is the reason. There were cases of accounts shutdown due to the developers writing reviews from other accounts for their apps on App Store.

8ytecoder 3y ago

AFAIK, you can’t be very specific when it’s money laundering or something similar. Apple would have reported it and give a vague non-specific reason.