Allegations of faked reviews force Apple's hand.
iPhone developer Molinker has been smited by the hand of Apple, following allegations of widespread App Store review fraud on its products.
The company had more than 1,000 apps available on the store, but an expose on iPhone photography blog iPhoneography claimed that the vast majority of the five-star reviews for its products were faked - written by people who only reviewed Molinker apps.
Yesterday, the blog ran a follow-up piece after the apps disappeared from the App Store at a stroke. Apple's SVP of worldwide product marketing Philip Schiller even confirmed the removal in an email:
"Yes, this developer's apps have been removed from the App Store and their ratings no longer appear either."
App Store reviews have been a controversial area in recent times. US PR firm Reverb Communications was attacked after the leak of a document which appeared to show it was encouraging interns to post five-star reviews of its clients' games and apps.
Still, Molinker is the most high-profile farrago of this nature, not least because of the sheer number of apps it had available.
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