Google banned almost 120k spam developer accounts in 2020 for the play store

How to Lie and Distort with Statistics 101:<p>1. Use absolute numbers or percentages depending on whichever sounds higher;<p>2. Don&#x27;t put absolute numbers in context. For example, is that 119k out of 500k or 500M?<p>3. Only mention false positive rate if it&#x27;s really low;<p>4. Only mention false negative rate if it&#x27;s really low;<p>5. Don&#x27;t be afraid to retroactively include data in your featured set. For example, classifying accounts banned for other reasons as spam accounts;<p>6. Only mention time frames if it helps your case. For example, if those accounts had been operating for a mean of 3 years then say nothing about that.<p>I&#x27;m not saying any of the above are true but after having seeing thousands of these pronouncements, my mind automatically goes to start asking what isn&#x27;t being said here.<p>I remember seeing this first hand at Google with the cut backs in food (cafes and microkitchens). There were statements about &quot;we saved $100m&quot;. That&#x27;s an absolute number that sounds large. It actually amounted to something like $2&#x2F;employee per day for a noticeable decrease in both quantity and quality to the point where people complained. Was that really worth it? Probably not.

I don&#x27;t care, Play Store is completely broken from both the user&#x27;s and more so from the developer&#x27;s perspective. I feel at this point they should declare a &quot;review bankruptcy&quot; and either scrap the review process or start over with a new inventory.<p>I had the displeasure of publishing a few client apps recently. The pointless bureaucracy of it all reminded me of the worst interactions I ever had with the government and banking establishments.<p>Apple: rejected, we couldn&#x27;t find the Apple Pay feature<p>Me: it&#x27;s on the checkout screen<p>Apple: ok then, accepted<p>At least Apple has a pretty fast turnaround.<p>Despite all this theatre, both app stores have become wastelands of broken and scammy apps to the point I never go there unless via direct link from a trusted outside source.

I&#x27;m fascinated by the social cost of these spam accounts and apps. Who is installing these apps? What are the spammers getting out of them? Who is writing them? How much economic damage is being done by these apps, if you tried to sum it up?<p>To be honest, when I look at the mobile ecosystem, it seems to me that a pretty large fraction of the &quot;legitimate&quot; apps are barely better than spam. Most of the best freemium and gatcha games are pretty terrible, and I can only imagine how bad the bad stuff is.<p>Fortunately, there&#x27;s a filter that can exclude free apps on Google Play. Seems to me, especially in the games department, it behooves you to turn that on. If you do, you generally won&#x27;t be affected by psuedo spam or actual spam.

Just taking the first example in this list, the new COVID-19 rule, do you remember when Google banned the most popular Android Podcast app for a few days ? Of course the Google Podcasts app wasn&#x27;t banned during the same period:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=23219427" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=23219427</a>

I am running some bigger apps. One way of finding out copies of your app is by sending package info to your server when the app starts. Package info contains the package name which is for example &#x27;my_business.my_app.com&#x27; I just did a select distinct on package names and found about 250 package names with a slightly different name. The copy guy changed the package name and republished it. Some of these clones have more than 50k installs. Most of these copied apps are no longer available. In fact at this point of time none are existing. I guess Google auto detects clones and remove the accounts. I understand the big number shared.

How many in error? How many of those filed support requests that were never responded to by a human?

Meanwhile, Google only gives temporary bans on apps and developers that are found to be malicious only to allow them back on to the Play store after removing offending code. (Or should I say obfuscating the offending code)

All of this reminds me of one of the best GDC talks ever given: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=E8Lhqri8tZk" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=E8Lhqri8tZk</a>

How many of those were automated bans because some other related account was taken down?

As I post this, four of the top ten apps on the Kenyan PlayStore are in clear violation of Google&#x27;s own rules on payday loan apps and the current number one looks suspiciously like a pirate streaming service.<p>I can&#x27;t say that I understand the scale of moderating the PlayStore and as others have mentioned, this blogpost is vague with its numbers. Judging by what I can see, the current system is not doing enough.

Shouldn&#x27;t the title phrase it as &quot;allegedly spam ...&quot;. Or, have these been adjudicated?

How many false positives?

How many of those account hadn&#x27;t been created if it cost $99 to make one?

Google should stop this whack-a-mole approach and find a better approach.<p>I think a developer reputation system is much better and far cheaper for Google.

This is why I&#x27;m ok with Apple charging $99 for a distribution developer account.