MacNN reported that an iPhone developer has been banned and had it’s entire library of iPhone apps pulled from the App Store for their unscrupulous practice of using shills to get good rating reviews.
Molinker has its library of 1,011 iPhone apps yanked from the App Store due to suspicions raised by users regarding the veracity of the reviews posted by other users. Several users who have posted single-star ratings on some of Molinker’s apps noticed five-star reviews from the same users across different Molinker apps. App Store user “SCW” sent an email addressed to Apple’s vice president of worldwide product marketing Phil Schiller to iPhone photography blog, iPhoneohgraphy, concerning this issue. An excerpt from that email reads:
Please investigate for I have just looked at 44 of the reviewers who posted reviews for this Molinker Inc app “NightCam Pro” & EVERY Review except 2 of the 44+ are ALL FAKE 5 ★★★★★ reviews… ALL have ONLY reviewed ONLY Molinker apps. A little odd that 42 of 44 US reviews are poorly written & that all users have only written reviews for either All Molinker photography apps (giving 5 star reviews to 6-7 Molinker apps ONLY no other apps by any other developer) or the same 2 apps.
iPhoneography, after looking into the matter, agreed with SCW that something was indeed fishy. They sent the email through the proper channels at Apple.
All of Molinker’s apps were then quietly removed from the App Store and Phil Schiller later confirmed the iPhone apps removal though there was no mention from Schiller about the banning of the developer.
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