A Security App's Fake Reviews Give Us a Window Into 'App Store Optimization'

A company that makes an email app that helps users encrypt their emails paid for fake reviews in an attempt to get more people to download its products, according to leaked emails obtained by Motherboard. An anonymous reader shares a report: The CEO of pEp, a Luxembourg-based company that makes the pEp email encryption apps for Android and iOS, commissioned a marketing company to write fake reviews that he himself wrote in the summer of last year. Leon Schumacher asked the marketing company Mobiaso to post 40 five-star reviews in English, French, and German to the Google Play Store. Schumacher included an Excel spreadsheet that contained the specific text that he wanted Mobiaso to use. "Super easy privacy," one fake review said. "One of the best mail applications. I have never had problems and I suggest it all the time to friends," another said.

"Can we speed up today and do 12 ratings per day do 7 reviews per day (Please use the Texts below for the right countries (that I forwarded already per earlier e-mail)," Schumacher wrote in an email to Mobiaso. pEp, short for Pretty Easy Privacy, develops email encryption apps for both iOS and Android, where it has more than 10,000 installs, according to the stats on the Google Play Store. The company, through its foundation, also funded a new library to encrypt emails using PGP, the decades old technology that allows users to encrypt emails and other files. Mobiaso advertises "iOS reviews" and "Android installs" on its website. One of the services the company offers is App Store Optimization, or ASO, which includes fake reviews. The service has several price tiers, ranging from $160 to $450. Only the two most expensive tiers include fake reviews. "Each app developer/advertiser should remember that without a good ASO search optimization, your target audience wouldn't even find or open your app page," Mobiaso says.

Thought about TV ads...

[Petersko]

How much different is it when a TV ad runs in which an actor makes some claim about an experience with a product that is almost certainly not personal? These days in some markets advertisers must post an indicator stating that the content is either a dramatic recreation or simply delivered by actors, but for most of television history, fake reviews were part and parcel.

Re:Thought about TV ads...

[DarkOx]

I guess because online real-reviews are indistinguishable from fake-reviews for the most part. I think most of us know Joe Namath probably isnt a reverse mortgage customer but I have no real way to know if Petersko actually uses PhoneVirusSweeper7

Re:

[gruumine]

agree with this one. One should be careful about these things.

Re:

[BAReFO0t]

You are saying it's all fraudulent lying?

I would have to agree.

The question is why it's legal in the first place.
Are we still acting like we're all perfect individuals, free from any manipulation? Or rather: Are we still letting us being manipulated into believing that we are? :)

Re:

[Petersko]

"You are saying it's all fraudulent lying?"

Nope. Just throwing a thought out. Not expressing an opinion.

Google Math

[jetkust]

I've always wondered how it's possible on Google Play that apps can have 90% one star reviews but somehow still end up with a 4 star rating.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

I've always wondered how it's possible on Google Play that apps can have 90% one star reviews but somehow still end up with a 4 star rating.

Summation

Re:

[BAReFO0t]

Then it could only ever be four reviews, of which 100% would be one star reviews. So it can't be 90%. ;)

Re:

[DamnOregonian]

Isn't it obvious?
The other 10% were 31 star reviews.

No a big problem for google play

[xwin]

I do not see a big problem with fake reviews on google play. Usually the app is free and one can try it before paying for it. This will naturally kill off any junk apps. Same problem is larger in Apple store or Amazon. Most of the apps in Apple store have to be paid for and the free ones are mostly garbage. Amazon has the same problem - junk products with fake reviews bubble up to the top and it is hard to distinguish which one is a good one. For play store my own solution is to test-drive the app. Most of

Better way to make money

[LenKagetsu]

Sell fake reviews at a rock-bottom price, then a week later start charging a fee to "maintain" these reviews or else they get turned into 1-star reviews with accusations of crashing the phone, installing malware, and so on. Once that happens it'll start being regulated damn quick.

Re:

[BAReFO0t]

> implying there are real reviews

Unless I know you, your review is as real to me as you: Pretty much not at all.
It can change, once I get to know you, of course. But then I still wouldn't have to look online, now would I?

Reputation algorithms are needed

[FeelGood314]

I trust most of my friends reviews a lot. I trust the friends of my friends slightly less, unless its Steve, most of Steve's friends are pot heads but Phil, Phil is a total nerd and so are his friends so I trust them. So I could make a graph of trust worthy reputations starting with my friends using slight modifiers and branch out from there. I may never have met Brenda but she is linked 5 friends away from me in 715 different ways so I know her review at least isn't fake. At 6 degrees of separation I p

Re:

[DamnOregonian]

Isn't it "officially" both? (French and German spelling)
It's been that way since the founding of the current independent state, if I'm not mistaken.
Are you objecting to the fact that there's an officiality to the French spelling at all?

Positive reviews? What positive reviews?

[Sokaku]

This is why I don't even bother with positive reviews / ratings. I go straight to negative reviews. Real people generally only post when they have a problem and many people will post negatively due to unreasonable expectations. I read what the complainers have to say and whether there seems to be any basis/consistency across the complaints and whether anything i deem a concern is raised and make my decision based on that. It's like the nonsense on looking at EBay seller ratings. Do I go with the seller wit