App Store Fraud Applications: Apple Shall Investigate Dereliction of Duty of Its Staffs

By You Yunting

The App Store of Apple is kind of online store to sell applications to mobile terminal users; however, since last year, we have seen the store has been puzzled by the criticism of fraudulence apps in China, which is lasting to now. In my opinion, there’re obviously overall flaws of the examination system of App Store, which shall make Apple be liable to the fraudulence in the store, and therefore a making-up of the flaws and the investigation over the claimed dereliction of duty or the bribery by its staffs is urgently demanded. The following is my analysis:

Part I, No defense against the fraudulence apps in all examination steps of the App Store

It shall be no strange to see defects of a newly emerging thing like the App Store, and by the statistics issued this June, there have been uploaded more than 650, 000 apps, which makes the management and supervision on the market a difficult task. But the fishiest part of the defects is almost all the steps in the App Store are facing the challenge of fraudulent apps.

I. The step of examination

The fraudulence in apps is rare in the English zone, for Apple insists a strict examination on the apps uploaded by the developers, and many functions of fraudulent apps, like caller location, blacklist of callers, etc, are not supportable there either on the hardware or in the operation system. Therefore, there could be no reason and space for such apps to be approved by Apple, while the situation in Chinese zone is totally different, where we could see straightforward of the launching of such apps. For more details you may CLICK HERE (note: the link is in Chinese).

II. The step of ranking

Actually, now the official ranking publicized by Apple has been occupied with fraudulent apps. When writing this essay, I find at least 3 apps are suspected of fraudulence in the top 12 payment demanded apps as ranked in the store of China mainland, which are respectively relating to the caller location or the chasing of mobile phone. Although such apps may be added to the rank through the cheating method, it’s outrageous that Apple could tolerate the promotion of fraudulent apps on its front page which could result in a great damage to the company’s reputation.

III. The step of complaint and comment

The most possible measures taken by the user when finding purchased a fraudulent app could be the complaint to Apple or the comment below the malware. When writing the essay, I checked the comments made by the user to a caller location software, and despite the full screen of complaints of the poor quality of the apps, we still see no action or reply from Apple examination department accordingly.

That’s absolutely contrast with the efficient and resolute actions as Apple always do. Logically judging, the answers to it could be the following three:

1. Apple has assigned few staffs in charge of the apps examination for the data shows less local users in China has paid for their app download, and therefore, no wonder we could see such a poor check, slow problem handling which both contribute to the delayed resolution of the dispute.

2. Some employees for examinations may be involved in the dereliction of duty, and that encourages the fraudulence in the store.

3. What’s more exaggerating, the collusion between the cheaters and the internal men is also possible, by which both parties may benefit from the dirty income of the cheating.

The above 3 problems could be co-existing; the 1 is mainly concerned to the system of Apple, which defects may lead to the emerging of the 2 and 3.

Part 2, Why it’s urgently demanded of Apple to conduct the investigation and make the settlement?

I. Huge amounts of victims

There are millions of iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch users in China, and more than half of them are the consumers of App Store, where the promoted apps are highly possible the fraudulent ones. Therefore, it could be estimated that the number of victims shall not be small and may be more than millions. Even if the cheated money may not be much, the total amount involved may be outrageous, and that by China laws and regulations could be big-scale damages to consumers’ interests.

II. Great legal risk from the fraudulent apps

A delayed resolution to the fraudulent apps may also increase the legal risk taken by Apple and its staffs

1. The civil tort or infringement liability

Apple follows a profit distribution share of 3:7 with the developers, and by the principle of corresponding rights and liabilities, Apple shall take the joint liability with the developers when the fraudulent apps in the store damage the interests of consumers.

2. The crime of fraudulent

Some apps in the store completely share no common points as described. And in such situation, the developers are possibly to be judged the swindling public or private articles with the purpose of illegal occupation and by the fact fabrication or concealing the truth. And when Apple has a full awareness of it, the company could be the accomplice for its indirect intent.

3. The crime of commercial bribery

In case my speculation is true, and the staffs of Apple do share the illegal income with the developers, then such misconducts could constitute the crime of commercial bribery.

For the jurisdiction, despite the server of the App Store as well as its operation are in USA, by Chinese civil or criminal litigation procedure law, the local judicial offices in China may have the jurisdiction to it as the victims are living in China. For the high expenses, I predict there could be little chances to file the civil lawsuit against the fraudulence, while it’s held by judicial organs that the crime suspects are seeable in the operation of App Store, then investigation on the possible dereliction of duty and bribery by the developers and Chinese Apple staff is highly possible.

At the end, the problem of fraudulence mainly comes from the flaws of Apple’ s system, while as to the illegal profits made by internal staffs of Apple is remained unknown to me. But one thing could be sure that more chances to see the crime as more delayed of the flaws making up. Therefore, Apple shall immediately launch the investigation over the claimed fraudulence, and the possible crime conducted by its staffs. All the cheated consumers as well as the users of Apple product are looking forward to a definite answer.

Lawyer Contacts

You Yunting

86-21-52134918

youyunting@debund.com, yytbest@gmail.com

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