Apple this week announced that it blocked 1.7 million applications from being published in the App Store in 2022. The rejected apps did not meet required privacy, security, and content standards.
Launched in 2008, the App Store has more than 650 million average weekly visitors globally, who can access content from more than 36 million registered Apple developers.
Last year, Apple terminated 428,000 developer accounts for fraudulent activity and rejected 105,000 Developer Program enrollments.
The tech giant says it blocked 57,000 untrustworthy apps distributed through illegitimate storefronts and roughly 3.9 million attempts to deploy or launch applications distributed illicitly via the Developer Enterprise Program.
In 2022, Apple disabled more than 282 million customer accounts that engaged in fraudulent activities and prevented 198 million fraudulent new accounts from being created.
According to Apple, its team reviews on average more than 100,000 app submissions per week. Last year, the team reviewed over 6.1 million app submissions and rejected 1.7 million of them, on various fraud and privacy concerns.
Some of the rejected apps, Apple says, contained malicious code designed to steal user credentials, while others were disguised as financial management platforms but could morph into other applications.
Other applications were spam, copycats, or misleading, contained undocumented features, or attempted to obtain users’ data without their consent. Unapproved apps under a developer account disabled for fraud are also removed.
According to Apple, over 147 million ratings and reviews were blocked and removed from the App Store last year, out of a total of more than a billion that were processed.
The tech giant also says it blocked roughly 3.9 million stolen credit cards from being used in its store, and banned 714,000 accounts, thus blocking fraudulent transactions worth more than $2 billion.
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