Rumor: China's App Boosting Service Firms Reach 300
China Business News, 2/09/12
An industry insider said recently that there were at least 300 companies in China specializing in submitting fraudulent reviews for applications. The insider said that at a conservative estimate 30% of mobile applications used the services of these companies, and that 70% of applications had boosted their app rankings either using their own staff or the services of these companies. The practice of hiring people to boost app download figures and positive ratings, and to leave negative feedback for competitors' applications, is an open secret in the industry.
One organization offering iOS app boosting services online advertises that it will "boost your app's iTunes ranking as high as you like within three hours." The organization boasts that five of its clients are in the iTunes Top 30 list, and that more than 100 of its clients have at some point been featured in the iTunes Top 100 Free list. Among these clients, the record single-day number of downloads for one of these boosted apps was 1.2 mln downloads . The organization offers app-astroturfing plans for prospective customers: RMB 0.8 per download for 10,000 downloads, RMB 0.73 per download for 20,000 downloads, and RMB 0.68 per download for 30,000 downloads. For more than 30,000 downloads, the organization offers "long-term partnerships." The organization also offers feedback-astroturfing, including positive comments for clients and negative comments for competitors, at a cost of RMB 2 per comment.
Another industry source said that some astroturfing companies of a certain scale saw annual revenues of RMB 1 mln or more.
Apple recently warned application developers against using any promotional services offering guarantees of boosting their App Store rankings. The warning stated that even if companies were not personally involved in attempting to manipulate App Store ranking or customer feedback, hiring companies to do so would also result in being blocked from the App Store.
Keywords: scam rankings wireless app store Apple mobile application
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