Google is taking a proactive approach to protect the integrity of Google Play Store by tracking down and managing fraudulent and spamming applications. The company would do so by using new tools which are designed to find apps that attempt to falsely boost their visibility in search results.
Dubious developers attempt to manipulate the ranking and placement of their apps through illegitimate means such as fraudulent installs, fake reviews and paid third-party ratings. These are in complete violation of the Google Play Developer Policy. This process harms other developers, and there is a risk of users making wrong decisions based on inaccurate or false information.
Due to these activities, Google has rolled out a new detection and filtering system meant to catch apps that manipulate their search ranking. With this tool, aggressive app installs that are pushed onto users to improve ranking on Google Play can be caught and filtered out of the search results. Google will also track faked app reviews and ratings.
Amazon has similar policies regarding fake reviews. Amazon has banned reviews posting that are compensated with free products. Apple has also taken action to clean out old and out dated or unmaintained apps from the iTunes App Store.
Google has advised Android app writers to adhere to the Google Play Developer Policy. Although the company has made it clear that it would not take direct action against the developers behind non-complaint apps. However, repeat offenders face the possibility of having their apps removed from the Play Store permanently.