Using a unique model for classifying suspicious review activity on apps, we found as many as 25% of the top 100 apps on Google Play in certain popular categories have suspicious reviews, while in Apple's App Store this figure was 17%.
Over the years we’ve exposed fake reviews on a variety of platforms, for both products and businesses. So it might not come as a surprise that there’s a thriving business for fake reviews on app stores, too. Our latest research reveals the scale of the issue.
Find outDodgy apps on Apple and Google app stores
We conducted a large-scale analysis of the reviews on apps we knew had paid for fake five star reviews, looking at the data for more than 18,000 reviews.
create a model for estimating the amount of suspicious activity across apps.We found stark differences in review patterns.
Five starsBulk uploadsLength of reviewsWe also conducted an analysis of the content of the reviews using sentiment analysis, a widely used method for determining the subjectivity of a review. We found that apps that had engaged in fake review activity had a higher proportion of subjective five star reviews than one star reviews - for example a five star review would read ‘best app ever’. In our benchmarked apps, subjectivity was similar across star ratings.
How many apps have suspicious reviews?
We applied our model to the top 100 apps in the health and fitness and gaming apps categories on Google Play and the Apple App Store, analysing a total of 900,000 reviews.
Across both app stores, we found that 21% of top 100 health & fitness apps had suspicious reviews – based on the ‘red flags’ we determined were indicative of misleading review behaviour in our methodology. For games apps, this figure was 19%.
Where do app store fake reviews come from?
Our past investigations into fake reviews have revealed a number of fraudulent third parties that sell or promote fake review services, and the usual sources and suspects were also discovered dealing in fake app reviews.
Review brokers
To make money from an app, developers are reliant on users seeing and downloading it. Apps will go up the rankings based on installs and reviews, and look more reputable if they’ve been downloaded a large number of times. Up votes on reviews manipulate what app store users see - reviews are automatically sorted by ‘helpful’ or ‘relevance’ so positive reviews can be surfaced and negative reviews buried.
This has led to an illegal industry of review brokers for app stores - which we uncovered easily by searching on Google. Some even pay Google to appear at the top of the search results as advertised businesses, while selling fake reviews for Google’s own app store - an unscrupulous triangle.
Others were familiar to us from previous investigations into review brokers, including AppSally which offers review manipulation for lots of platforms. Another site, reviewlancer, claims to have sold nearly 53,000 reviews and exchanged more than 130,000 reviews between apps.
Meta review groups
Five star reviews are openly traded on groups with names like ‘Android App ratings and reviews’ or ‘App reviews’. We went undercover as a developer looking for fake reviews for an app, and were approached by several users offering reviews for as little as £1.70 ($2). Using information gathered from going undercover in Facebook groups and through review broker sites we compiled a list of apps that we knew had used fake reviews.
What the app stores told us
We reached out to the platforms involved with our findings.
AppleGoogle MetaAppSallyReview LancerWhich? is calling for tougher measures on fake reviews
The government is expected to deliver reforms to crack down on fake reviews through its Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer (DMCC) Bill. This should introduce a vital update to consumer protection law to ensure major tech firms take more responsibility for addressing fake reviews that are rife on their platforms.
We want to see higher levels of standards in the apps market, and when it comes to fake reviews we believe that it shouldn’t be up to consumers to wade through misleading information to make an informed choice - whether that’s a business, a product, or an app.
Rocio Concha, Which? Director of Policy and Advocacy'Our latest findings illustrate why the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer Bill is so badly needed in order to tackle fake reviews and the dominance of the tech giants, and finally make consumer protection laws fit for the digital age.'
Five tips for using app stores safely
Apps are big business - according to Statista, the Google Play store had 2.68 million apps in 2022, with Apple's App store housing 3.8 million. With this much competition, apps clearly need to find ways to get noticed – but with issues varying from fake reviews to hidden malware, it's important to take care with every app you download.
Check app permissions – Install the latest updates – Sort the reviews – Be sceptical of large numbers of five star reviews – Check the frequency and length of reviews –source https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/apple-app-store-and-google-play-flooded-with-fake-reviews-aEA138U8bUw6