Google relies on automation when it comes to quality control on the Google Play Store. The result is quite clear: the Play Store is filled with fakes, and there is zero interest from Google on fixing this. Nikolaos Chrysaidos‏, a security researcher has recently shared his findings on Twitter. The store has dozens of fake VPN apps, which only present the user with ads, and do not actually work.
At the time of writing, some of these apps are still in the Play Store.
The effort looks like a concerted effort by a single developer under different developer names. It seems that all the apps only serve to monetize by blasting the users with ads.
Most of these apps have very low ratings but have been downloaded by thousands of users as well.
It’s not clear if Google plans to do anything in general about the quality of apps in the Play Store. The number of users in the “next billion” who can be duped by such apps is far too high, as even veteran Android users could be fooled by these.
Source:Â Twitter (@virqdroid)
