Yesterday Apple took the extreme step of banning a developer, Molinker, for posting bogus reviews on iTunes.
No doubt, there's some number of bogus reviews on any product review site, whether iTunes, Amazon, or elsewhere. But in this case, the developer had posted dozens if not hundreds of bogus reviews across their product portfolio.
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The company had over 1,000 different related apps on iTunes. I don't know how well these applications were selling, but Apple was getting 30 percent of the revenues.
Despite the fact that Apple was making money off Molinker, the company didn't hestitate to do the right thing: It banned Molinker and all of its applications. It looks like Apple gets "Do no evil" maybe even better than Google does.
As I reported two weeks ago, Google's got plenty of bogus review sites that it promotes through its AdSense program. As far as I can tell, Google is still ignoring the issue. Maybe it will take the FTC to crack down on scam review sites using Google ads.
It's nice to see a tech company do right by consumers and ensure a level playing field. Apple, good on ya!
This article, "Apple bans developer for posting bogus reviews," originally appeared at InfoWorld.com. Follow open source developments at InfoWorld.com.