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Apple removes Fakespot from App Retailer after Amazon complains

Apple removes Fakespot from App Store after Amazon complains

The Amazon Shopping App in the Google Play Store on an Android smartphone.

Christoph Dernbach | Image Alliance | Getty Images

Apple removed Fakespot, a popular app for detecting fake product reviews, from its app store after Amazon complained that the app contained misleading information and potential security risks.

The Fakespot app analyzes the credibility of the reviews of an Amazon offer and rates them with grades A to F. Then buyers receive recommendations for products with high customer satisfaction.

Amazon said it reported Fakespot to Apple for investigation after worrying that a redesigned version of the app was confusing consumers by displaying the Amazon website in the app with Fakespot code and content overlaid on top of it. Amazon said it doesn’t allow applications to do this. An Amazon spokesperson claimed, “The app in question provides customers with misleading information about our sellers and their products, harms our sellers’ businesses and creates potential security risks.”

On Friday afternoon, after a review by Apple, the app was no longer available in the App Store.

Misleading or fake user reviews have proven to be a major problem for online retailers, including Amazon. The company recently stepped up its efforts to detect and remove fake reviews. The third-party marketplace, made up of millions of sellers, accounts for more than half of the company’s total revenue, but has become fertile ground for fake reviews, counterfeiting, and unsafe products. Regulators in the US and abroad have taken steps to curb fake reviews on and off Amazon.

As fake reviews spread the internet, third-party apps and websites have sprung up to help shoppers spot them, like Fakespot, ReviewMeta, and ReconBob.

Amazon has reported the well-known Fakespot detector app to Apple for investigation, which led to its removal from the App Store.

Amazon

Apple said in a statement that on June 8th, Amazon launched a dispute with the Fakespot app over intellectual property rights. Apple said it provided steps to Fakespot to keep their app in the store and gave them “plenty of time” to resolve the issue. It then reached out to Fakespot on June 29, weeks before the app was removed from the App Store.

An Apple spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to questions about which App Store guidelines were violated by Fakespot.

But Amazon pointed out two subsections of Apple’s App Store guidelines to CNBC that Fakespot may have violated. A policy states that apps must ensure that they are allowed to use, access, monetize access to, or display content from third parties. Another guideline is that apps shouldn’t contain incorrect information and functionality.

Amazon also claims that Fakespot’s coding technique enables the app to collect and track information from customers. The company made similar claims last January against Honey, a browser extension that allows users to find coupons while shopping online, and warned users that it could be a “security risk”.

Fakespot: “You showed zero evidence”

In an interview, Saoud Khalifah, founder and CEO of Fakespot said he denied Amazon’s claims that the app posed security risks and said that while Fakespot collects some user data, it does not sell it to third parties.

Khalifah added that many apps use the same coding technique called “wrapping” to include a web browser view, such as coupon providers. He said many apps and websites also collect and track user information, including Amazon.

“We don’t steal user information, we’ve never done that before,” said Khalifah. “They showed zero evidence and Apple responded with zero evidence.”

Fakespot released a new version of its app at the end of May. Amazon reported the app to Apple in mid-June, Khalifah said.

Khalifah said he was upset that Apple Fakespot failed to adequately warn that the app would be removed from the App Store or that issues with the app could be fixed.

“Imagine you go to a tenant and say you have to take all your belongings with you, you have to leave immediately. That’s how I feel right now, to be completely honest with you, ”he added.

The Fakespot app will still be available in the Google Play Store for Android devices from Friday evening.

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Business

YouTube Removes Myanmar Army Channels

YouTube Removes Myanmar Military Channels

YouTube said Friday that it had deleted five television channels operated by Myanmar’s military from its platform. It was the latest in a series of moves by American internet giants to reduce the military’s online footprint since it took power in a coup last month.

The company – a unit of Alphabet that also owns Google – said in a statement that it removed the channels and videos based on its community guidelines, but without disclosing what rules the military broke. The channels blocked included the government-run radio and television in Myanmar and the military-owned Myawaddy Media, both of which broadcast news, sports, military propaganda and battle anthems.

The removal came at the end of the bloodiest week of protests since the overthrow of Myanmar’s fragile democratic government on February 1. More than 30 people were killed on Wednesday as security forces used increasingly brutal means to quell protests against the coup. At least one person, a 20-year-old man who was shot in the neck, was killed in a protest Friday in Mandalay city.

Myanmar’s post-coup policy also played out digitally. Protesters have used social media sites to schedule demonstrations, distribute memes deciphering the generals’ takeover, and share videos about police and military violence.

The military, in turn, has stormed telecommunications data centers and blocked social media sites. Sometimes it completely cut off internet access. When they can get online, many people in the country have turned to special software to bypass the blocks and log into sites like Facebook.

In the weeks since the coup, internet companies have slowly tightened controls on the military. Last week, Facebook said it would block all military pages on its website and reduce advertising by military-owned companies in one of the most direct interventions in any country’s politics to date.

The shutdown of YouTube appeared to be on the verge of a broader ban on Facebook. A YouTube spokesperson didn’t respond to questions about whether Alphabet would take further action against the military, such as canceling it. B. Blocking their companies’ access to ads, as was the case with Facebook. The move from YouTube was previously reported by Reuters.

The coup and subsequent protests have placed American internet companies in an increasingly familiar, if uncomfortable position as political arbiter in struggles for democracy and human rights far removed from their homeland. Nationalist leaders around the world, from the Philippines to India to the US, have used Facebook and other platforms to spread disinformation and incite violence.

Myanmar had already become a test case for dealing with some of the internet’s most dangerous excesses. For example, Facebook has been heavily criticized for how the military used the platform to promote hatred against the Rohingya minority in Myanmar, the victims of an ethnic cleansing campaign carried out by the military.

Myanmar only joined the global internet after the generals who had controlled the country for years relaxed their hold about a decade ago. Since then, people in Myanmar have gone into online life with great enthusiasm. Sites like YouTube and Facebook have become town squares for a country that went online late.

Although the military has been persistent in its approach to internet blocs since the coup, it has years of experience with online disinformation. For example, while it perpetrated atrocities against the Rohingya, members of the military were the main actors behind a systematic campaign on Facebook that humiliated the mostly Muslim ethnic group as illegally living in Myanmar, despite many having been there for generations.

Internet companies have tried to show that they were aware of the military’s tactics. During the campaign leading up to the national elections in Myanmar last year, Alphabet shut down two YouTube channels that were alleged to be linked to influencing operations that support the party formed by the former military junta. After the election, the company dropped 34 more military-related YouTube channels. In the past few months, another 20 such channels and 160 videos have been cut for violating policies related to hate speech, harassment and violent content.

Despite the blockades, activists in Myanmar complain that tech companies are still slow to break down disinformation and violent content. The official pages of several television channels that had been switched off by YouTube had already been blocked by Facebook. And since Facebook’s major ban on military sites, a number of replacement sites appear to have sprung up to replace those that were removed.

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Business

Twitter Removes Over 70,000 QAnon Accounts

Twitter Removes Over 70,000 QAnon Accounts

SAN FRANCISCO – Twitter announced Monday that it had removed more than 70,000 accounts promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory in the past few days as the company stepped up its crackdown on content that could lead to violence after President Trump had been banned from his service last week.

Twitter, which ran the suspensions over the weekend, said it helped curb posts that “have the potential to cause offline damage”. It added that many of the users that were removed had operated multiple QAnon accounts, which increased the total number of accounts that were removed.

“These accounts dealt with the large-scale sharing of malicious QAnon-associated content and were primarily dedicated to spreading this conspiracy theory throughout the service,” the company said in a blog post.

Social media companies have rushed to distance themselves from the violent mob attack in the Capitol building last week that Mr Trump fueled through social media posts and public comments. After the rampage, Twitter and Facebook suspended Mr. Trump’s accounts before eventually banning him from their duties and turning off the president’s megaphones.

Other social media platforms like Snapchat and Reddit have also made efforts to curb Mr. Trump and toxic speech that could inspire people to be violent in recent days. Facebook and Twitter have since expanded their promotions. On Monday, Facebook announced it was removing content related to “Stop the Steal,” a rally for Trump supporters who believe the false claim that the election was stolen from Mr. Trump.

Twitter said it will also step up its crackdown on misleading and false information about the presidential election. Users who persistently violate the Citizens’ Integrity Policy, which prohibits users from distributing content that hinders voter participation or misleads about the outcome of an election, would be permanently suspended, Twitter said.

The actions of Facebook and Twitter have received praise from liberals and others, but have also raised questions about corporate power over online discourse.

The QAnon conspiracy theory has long been in effect for Mr. Trump. His believers position Mr Trump as a hero who seeks to root out a global elite of pedophiles who worship Satan. One woman, Ashli ​​Babbitt, who broke through the Capitol last week and was shot dead, was a QAnon believer.

While the conspiracy theory has been established online for years, it has only been the past few months that social media companies have relocated to remove related content. In August last year, Facebook began setting guidelines banning QAnon groups inciting violence, before expanding the move in October by stating that it would remove any groups, pages, or Instagram accounts that were openly identified with QAnon.

In July, Twitter banned 7,000 QAnon accounts and blocked topics related to conspiracy theory from appearing in trending topics. But the theories have kept popping up on Twitter and other social media platforms, leading to online harassment and physical violence.

The elimination of tens of thousands of QAnon accounts, coupled with the routine removal of bots and spammers, resulted in noticeable fluctuations in the number of followers for some Twitter users.

This led some users – like former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and a Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz – to speculate that Twitter is covertly cutting them off from their followers because of their political beliefs.

After Twitter banned Mr. Trump from the platform, some of his supporters called for a protest in front of the company’s headquarters in San Francisco on Monday. City workers set up barricades and the police guarded to prevent disturbances. But their preparations were ultimately not necessary: ​​the protest only attracted one participant.

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Business

Sony Removes Cyberpunk 2077 From PlayStation Retailer After Complaints

Sony Removes Cyberpunk 2077 From PlayStation Store After Complaints

Sony, the company that owns and operates PlayStation, announced late Thursday that it is offering refunds to people who have purchased Cyberpunk 2077 and removing a highly anticipated video game from its online store after a week of negative reviews and criticism from users going to be his poor performance.

In a statement on the PlayStation website, Sony said that users who purchased the game through the PlayStation Store would be offered full refunds. Cyberpunk 2077, according to the company, will also be removed from business until further notice.

CD Projekt Red, the Warsaw-based developer of the game, said Friday that Sony’s decision to temporarily stop selling the game came after a discussion with the company.

“All digital and physical copies of the game purchased will continue to be supported and updated as we continue to improve your experience,” said CD Projekt Red, adding that Cyberpunk 2077 will be brought back to the PlayStation Store.

Sony didn’t immediately return a request for comment on Friday.

PlayStation’s attempt to halt the proliferation of Cyberpunk 2077, an RPG set in a dystopian, crime-ridden metropolis that has long been hyped as the game of the decade, came a week after the game was released and days of complaints from Users noticed about its glitches and poor graphics on some platforms.

On Monday, CD Projekt Red apologized for not showing the game, which retails for $ 59.99 and ran on base models of last generation consoles prior to its release, leaving gamers unable to make informed purchase decisions hold true.

“We should have been more careful that it works better on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One,” said the company. Gamers have reported fewer gameplay issues on other platforms, including the latest generation of consoles, the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, which were released last month but are still hard to find.

CD Projekt Red, which announced eight million pre-orders for the game, promised to fix the bugs and crashes that gamers were complaining about, and said major patches would arrive in January and February.

“Together, these should address the top issues gamers are facing on last-generation consoles,” the company said, adding that customers could also request refunds.

“We’d love if you gave us a chance. However, if you’re not happy with the game on your console and don’t want to wait for updates, you can refund your copy,” the company said.