Apple Undermines Its Position By Not Removing Fraudulent App

Apple is undermining one of its main arguments for its walled garden by not removing a fraudulent app from the App Store, despite being notified repeatedly....
Apple Undermines Its Position By Not Removing Fraudulent App
Written by Matt Milano
  • Apple is undermining one of its main arguments for its walled garden by not removing a fraudulent app from the App Store, despite being notified repeatedly.

    According to TechCrunch, RockAuto—which does not have an app of its own—discovered that a fake app was impersonating the company on the App Store. The company became aware of the issue when customers complained of “annoying ads” in the app.

    Despite repeatedly requesting that Apple remove the fraudulent app, and routing such requests through Apple’s official channels, the iPhone make has yet to remove the app.

    “It’s mostly one-way since the only replies we’ve had from Apple are ‘you shouldn’t have emailed, go use the online form’ and ‘upload screen prints of the app store listing and your trademark registration,’” RockAuto co-founder and president Jim Taylor told *TechCrunch, despite RockAuto already taking the steps Apple outlined.

    “Neither the uploaded documents nor the online form submissions produced any response at all,” Taylor added, “not even the promised ‘case number in 24 hours’ despite multiple submissions,” he said.

    Apple has repeatedly argued that its walled garden approach provides users a layer of security that is missing from competing platforms, such as Android. The company has used that argument as the crux of its defense in trials defending its tight control over the App Store ecosystem.

    The fact that bad actors can upload a fraudulent app is bad enough. That Apple is taking no action to resolve the situation, despite RockAuto’s repeated attempts, is unconscionable.

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