The Apple App store and Google Play are both failing to prevent fake reviews from infiltrating their platforms, a large-scale analysis by Which? has found.
The consumer champion uncovered that as many as a quarter (25%) of apps on the Google Play store out of the top 100 in certain popular categories have suspicious reviews, while in Apple’s App Store, this figure reached up to one in six (17%).
The findings suggest that millions of consumers could be unwittingly handing over their personal data or money to apps that have cheated their way to the top of the world’s two most prominent app stores using fake reviews.
Which? initially came across apps using fake five-star reviews after a simple Google search revealed a number of businesses offering review services for app stores.
Some even pay Google to appear at the top of the search results as advertised businesses, while selling fake reviews for apps on Google’s own store.
Review broker services offer bulk downloads, reviews or upvotes to help push apps up the rankings, making seem more reputable.
Meanwhile, upvotes manipulate what app store users see – reviews are automatically sorted by ‘helpful’ or ‘relevance’ so those with more upvotes will appear first, meaning developers can surface positive reviews and bury negative ones.
One fake review broker site, reviewlancer, claims to have sold nearly 53,000 reviews and exchanged more than 130,000 reviews between apps.
Another one called AppSally, offers review manipulation for many platforms and has featured in previous Which? fake review investigations.
Which? also found review trading groups on Facebook, where they openly trade on groups with names like ‘Android App ratings and reviews’ or ‘App reviews’.
Researchers pretending to be developers looking for fake reviews for an app were approached by several users offering reviews for as little as £1.70.
In response to the investigation, Meta removed a number of these Facebook groups for violating its policies.
Which?’s assessment found that apps on Google Play using paid-for reviews had a significantly higher proportion of five-star reviews.
Fake reviews also tended to be less than 20 characters long on average and were significantly shorter than the app’s one or two-star reviews.
Experts also analysed the content of the reviews using sentiment analysis and found that apps with fake reviews had a higher proportion of subjective five-star reviews favouring personal opinion such as ‘best app ever’ over factual information.
Examining nearly 900,000 reviews across both app stores, Which? found that a quarter (25%) of apps in the health & fitness category and one in five (22%) apps in the games category on the Google Play Store, fit the bill for suspicious reviews.
On the Apple App Store, one in six (17%) apps in the health & fitness category and one in seven (15%) apps in the games category raised red flags.
‘Apple and Google are failing to prevent fake and suspicious reviews infiltrating their app stores, leaving consumers at huge risk of being misled into downloading apps that have been boosted through unscrupulous tactics,’ said Rocio Concha, Which? Director of Policy and Advocacy.
Apple told Which? that submitting fraudulent reviews is a violation of its policy and developers who attempt to cheat the system may have their apps removed.
Google responded by taking action against fake app review broker sites and said that it does not allow ads that promote products or services designed to enable dishonest behaviour.
The government is expected to introduce reforms to crack down on fake reviews through its Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer Bill.
According to the new rules, it will be illegal to pay someone to write or host a fake review, so people are not cheated by bogus ratings.
Companies could also be fined up to 10% of their global turnover or up to £300,000 in the case of an individual misleading customers with fake reviews.
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