Apple bans developer from App Store for faking reviews

Apple has banned Molinker from its online store after complaints that Chinese app developer had posted fake glowing reviews of its many iPhone apps; Apple's action removed nearly 1% of the App Store's collected offerings.

iPhoneography, an iPhone photography and videography blog alerted Apple, and a friend of the site, known as SCW, discovered that Molinker's apps seemed to have an unusually large number of glowing five star reviews from just a few reviewers, who commented on nothing else.

They sent Apple senior VP, Phil Schiller an email which included the following:

'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. (on my iPhone I could view more reviews but on my computer only 35 were visible & of the 35 visible 34 ARE fake). If you investigate 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. 10 Reviewers who only reviewed NightCam Pro & ColorMagic (5 Stars), 24+ Reviewers have ONLY written reviews for 6-7 other Molinker photography apps (5 Stars) & 1-2 are real Reviews giving a 1 Star review.'

Schiller replied:

'Yes, this developer's apps have been removed from the App Store and their ratings no longer appear either.'

Not only have apps of dubious quality been removed from the App Store, but Apple's, whose strict control of the App Store has created much bad publicity for it, emerged with credit for acting quickly.

Molinker confirmed that it had received an email from Apple 'which told us our contract is changed to pending status.'