Apple blocked $2 Billion In Fraudulent Transactions And Rejected 1.7 Million Apps In 2022

Apple’s App Store has successfully prevented over $2 billion of potentially fraudulent transactions in 2022 in addition to rejecting close to 1.7 million apps for failing to meet its requirements for content, security, and privacy in a quest to protect its users.

Apple App Store’s Crackdown

The Apple App Store was launched in 2008 with the goal of establishing a “reliable and secure platform for users to safely discover and download apps”, and providing “developers with an exciting opportunity to showcase their ideas and grow their business”.

Since then, Apple said, it has provided more than 36 million registered Apple developers with access to a global distribution infrastructure that supports over 195 local payment methods and 44 different currencies, with over 650 million average weekly visitors globally.

According to a press release, Apple purged 282 million user accounts and 428,000 developer accounts for fraud and abuse saving over $2 billion that would potentially be lost to fraud. The previous year, the tech company rooted out double the number of developer accounts for the same reason.

Apple is all about protecting users in the App Store.

In 2022 they:
– Stopped more than $2 billion in fraudulent transactions
– Blocked more than 147 million fraudulent reviews
– Rejected 1.7 million app submissions
– Deactivated 428k fraudulent developer accounts… pic.twitter.com/RuJk3j5A9s

— Brandon Butch (@BrandonButch) May 16, 2023

The company attributed this “ in part to new methods and protocols that allow the App Store to prevent the creation of potentially fraudulent accounts”. With the new methods, Apple further claims to have blocked the creation of about 198 million fraudulent accounts before they were created.

The app store additionally rejected about 1.7 million app submissions citing the apps’ failure to pass the multiple review checks put in place by the tech company to ensure only safe apps are uploaded to the platform.

An excerpt from the press release reads:

Today, Apple announced that in 2022, the App Store prevented over $2 billion in potentially fraudulent transactions, and rejected nearly 1.7 million app submissions for failing to meet the App Store’s high standards for privacy, security, and content.

The release also stated that of the total apps rejected, the App Store refused more than 153,000 of them for being spam, copycats, or misleading whereas nearly 29,000 entries were disqualified for having undocumented or concealed features. According to the company, privacy issues were the reason more than 400,000 app submissions were denied.

These new figures are a notable increase from the previous year when Apple reported having blocked almost $1.5 billion in potentially fraudulent transactions and 1.6 million apps.

The Digital Market Act

The press release comes as Apple continues to be pressured to allow third-party app shops for the iPhone and iPad. In 2020, Epic Games, the creator of Fortnite, sued the tech company for restricting other app stores and only allowing its store which required payments to go through its own processor while preventing developers from communicating to customers about alternative ways to pay.

Apple has long warned that sideloading, which has been the center of the company’s dispute with Epic Games, exposes customers to security threats. Side loading refers to the act of installing an app on a phone or tablet without going through the official App Store.

As such, the tech company has pressed American legislators on the risks of sideloading, claiming that it maintains strict oversight of the programs in its App Store to keep customers secure. Fortunately for Apple, the courts ruled twice in its favor even after the game development company appealed the court’s decision.

However, the Digital Markets Act, agreed by the European Union last year, is set to compel big tech companies to let alternative app stores on their platforms, offering developers more options for app distribution and enabling users to download apps from a variety of sources.

In order to comply with the future regulations which are set to take effect in 2024, Bloomberg reported that Apple was getting ready to let alternate app stores run on its iPhones and iPads. According to reports, the company will introduce the updates this year along with the introduction of iOS 17.

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