Apple has announced that its App Store prevented over $2 billion in potentially fraudulent transactions last year. It rejected nearly 1.7 million app submissions in 2022 for failing to meet the App Store’s standards for privacy and security.
The App Store attracts over 650 million average weekly visitors worldwide, while providing more than 36 million registered Apple developers with a global distribution platform that supports more than 195 local payment methods and 44 currencies. The Cupertino-headquartered company has said that it has rooted out 428,000 developer accounts and 282 million customer accounts for fraud and abuse last year.
Further, last year, Apple blocked nearly “3.9 million stolen credit cards from being used to make fraudulent purchases, and banned 714,000 accounts from transacting again”.
The announcement comes at a time when there is a push to open up iPhones and iPads to third-party app stores. Last year, the European Union passed the Digital Markets Act that will go into effect in 2024, forcing companies to allow alternative app stores on their platforms. But installing an app on a phone or tablet without using the device’s official App Store may expose users to security risks.
Besides concerns related to fraud, privacy and usage of malicious code, there are other reasons an app can be rejected for fraud. “For example, over 153,000 app submissions rejected from the App Store last year were found to be spam, copycats, or misleading, and nearly 29,000 submissions were rejected for containing hidden or undocumented features. Sometimes apps try to obtain users’ personal data without their knowledge or consent. In 2022, upward of 400,000 app submissions were rejected for privacy violations,” the company said.