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Fake Shopping Apps Are Invading the iPhone (nypost.com)
An anonymous reader shares a NYPost report: For tech-focused scammers, knocking off sneakers and handbags is so last decade. Thieves in the digital age are slamming consumers right in the app. A slew of knockoff shopping apps have quietly infiltrated Apple's App Store in recent months, looking to lure unsuspecting iPhone owners with bogus deals on everything from jewelry to designer duds. The fake apps mimic the look of legit apps -- and have proliferated since this summer, experts said. It didn't help that earlier this month, Apple introduced search ads in its App Store. The fake apps are buying search terms, it would appear, to increase their exposure to consumers. The crooks are looking to tap into the fast-growing market for mobile sales, which last year leaped 56 percent to $49.2 billion, according to comScore.Further reading on NYTimes (NYTimes has opened its paywall till November 9).
Looks like these app appers failed to reinvent the web for obvious reasons. This is mostly solved problem with www.
come up with a political parody app and you won't be able to have it on the App Store. Develop a phony shopping app and you're given the green light. This is what we call hypocrisy folks and why Walled Gardens aren't all they are promised to be.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
I thought the appeal of the "walled garden" was that garbage like this wasn't supposed to make it into the App Store...
Perhaps someone with knowledge could comment - if Apple requires some authoritative identification behind each developer (phone #, validated proof of identity), couldn't they start just yanking entire groups of apps by spam developers once one fraudulent app is identified?
Make it a "[n] strikes and you're out" kind of system and can't fraud be controlled quite quickly?
"Hey this looks just like Amazon!"
"yes, but it says scAmazon"
"That's not fair! That sounds a lot like Amazon!"
"But the app doesn't look anything like Amazon"
"Yes but...."
"And Amazon never says 'get an iPod for only a Penny! Just give us your credit card!"
"I thought it was a Black Friday Sale!"
"Well, you're too stupid to work the internet then"
I thought the walled garden was supposed to prevent this kind of stuff.
LUDDITES are ruining appy app apps by making fake apps that are actually LUDDITE programs! ONLY apps can app apps, NOT LUDDITE software!
Apps!
if Apple requires some authoritative identification behind each developer (phone #, validated proof of identity}
It's adorable that you think criminals intent on stealing your money would be bothered by the problem of forging one or more sets of false credentials.
If you are stupid enoygh to fall for buying branded goods, you are stupid enough to be duped by fakes.
For buying overpriced shit like Michael Kors
this is what happens when your tiny niche product, which was less profitable to target for scammers, becomes mainstream and is now very profitable to scam. apple had it easy to keep the garden clean when it was small, but now that the garden is so large, the weeds are getting in faster than they could possibly be uprooted. welcome to relevancy apple, meet the place microsoft has been in for all these years. "i got an apple phone and mac, because they don't get viruses" just like the commercial said. "oh wait, they do get viruses? but the commercial said they don't, what gives"? "oh you mean that was a simple case of false advertising"? oh how the mighty have fallen! apple=microsoft
I thought Apple checks the apps that go in their store? Silly me!
Okay, seriously, what kind of idiot actually needs an app to shop for stuff? Is going to the store's website in a browser just too dang hard, or what?
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Throwing money at people you don't know and have never heard of before doesn't end well. Film at eleven.
Blame the gardeners.
How to clean this up: Make Apple pay for fraud using fake lookalike apps.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.