Snippet: In-App Purchase Scams in the App Store ☇

John Gruber on Johnny Lin’s investigation into scammy, bogus apps in the App Store:

But do-nothing anti-virus utilities that are scamming people into $100/week subscriptions? That’s downright criminal.

Lin shows that “Mobile protection :Clean & Security VPN” is not alone. The productivity top-grossing list is riddled with similar scam apps.

Given how many legitimate developers are still having problems getting their apps approved due to seemingly capricious App Store reviewer decisions, it’s doubly outrageous that these apps have made their way onto the store in the first place. These are the exact sort of apps that the App Store review process should be primarily looking to block.

And there is no excuse for Apple not having flagged them after the fact, once they started generating significant revenue. It’s downright mind boggling that this horrendous “Mobile protection :Clean & Security VPN” app made it all the way into the top 10 without getting flagged.

This is the App Store at its worst and inexcusable for Apple to have let this happen and continue.